


Resurrection

by ChaosDragon (PlotWitch)



Series: Till Death Do We Part [6]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Questionable Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-31
Updated: 2006-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 19:26:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 24
Words: 43,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotWitch/pseuds/ChaosDragon
Summary: Life moves on, and so has Anita. In the three years that have passed since she executed Van Cleef, she’s become a mother, ready to protect her children at all costs. But how can she protect them from something when she’s not sure how to protect herself?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely better written than the rest of the series. I know that there was another time skip in my writing that contributed to this, where I dabbled in another fandom and came back to finish the series off. I can tell, even just editing, lol. Fewer spelling and grammatical errors.

“Can I have this one, Mom?”

“No.”

Becca sighed and huffed off, putting the folders that she wanted back on the shelf. Normally I wouldn’t have any problem with it, but for some reason people thought it was cool to have folders that depicted vampires and werewolves lately.

And while Becca was inordinately proud of her ‘connections,’ her word not mine, it was still a little too politically incorrect for me. Besides, one of the wolves reminded me of someone who’d nearly killed me.

We were school shopping on the Saturday before school started. Needless to say, the store was fairly picked over. Of the basics, at least. But I wasn’t like all of the other mom’s out there, I was eager for Becca to have her own stuff. Price was not an option.

So we ruthlessly turned down the office supply aisle and started picking her out “grown-up” things. Things that she could customize. With the expensive computer and color LaserJet printer she had talked me in to for her twelfth birthday.

_ “But everyone will use it, not just me.” _

Right. And I’m the queen of Egypt.

But at any rate, we were supplied. I even had the things Anna would need for kindergarten. I was still working on the letting go part, but I figured it would come. School didn’t start until Wednesday. That gave me four days to work on it.

“How about this?” Becca was asking now as she shoved a pack of pastel colored legal pads under my nose.

“And what would you use them for?” I asked. “Love letters with Max?”

She blushed and dropped the pads into the cart. “Notes, Mother.”

I grinned as she walked off to look at pens and pencils. Max was a boy. A boy who was calling Becca. And had asked her out. I, naturally, said no. She was too young and there was no way she was allowed to go out with a boy by herself.

She could take the pard along as chaperones if she really wanted, I’d said. What I hadn’t said was that after she turned thirteen she could go on a group date with him. Without me following. Oh no, I was sending Richard. He was much better at blending.

That, and I really don’t think he’d threaten the little man with a gun if he tried to kiss her.

Two more months…

“Park tomorrow?” I asked her as I pushed the cart alongside.

She nodded, her hand brushing over one of the mechanical pencils in the display case. It was around a hundred bucks, and I could tell she wanted it. It had one of those cushy grips and automatically distributed the lead as you wrote. She sighed and moved on.

I watched as she grabbed a pack of cheap mechanical pencils and tossed them into the cart, and the turned to look at pens. I shook my head. Too grown up. I sighed.

We weren’t hurting for money. Even without touching the millions I’d put in trust for the girls before executing Van Cleef, there was no lack. I had renegotiated my contract with Bert shortly after Becca’s tenth birthday and even now, almost three years later, I was still pleased with it.

A maximum of ten raisings a month, I generally handled the ones that no one else was capable of. We’d even agreed that three of them could take me out of the city overnight, which let Bert contract me out to other animating firms when their clients wanted something only I could do.

I still consulted for RPIT on occasion, usually only getting a call once a month. And I still did executions for the city. Those were my biggest thing, getting me called to morgues in the city at least a couple of times a week. Anything out of the city and Larry went.

Larry or one of the two new animators I had trained. One being an honest to God necromancer, which really was a shock. She was a nice girl. A bit blood thirsty, but nice. She’d taken quite a few of the types of raisings I used to do, and was doing well in the execution department.

Not to mention that Larry had a bit of a crush on her. Which was cute, and sweet. And fairly disgusting the way they made goo goo eyes at each other. Yech. But I don’t expect I would have been any better if Edward were still alive.

I blinked.

If Edward were still alive I probably would have killed him. Or set him up for it by divorcing him. Because I’d been stupid and full of my morals and tried to push him away and out of my life. Our lives. I blinked again, biting back the painful memories.

Time doesn’t heal everything, but it does dull them if you don’t think about it too much. I tried not to. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But at least there were no maniacal rages or suicidal tendencies. Homicidal was still up for grabs, and I’m sure that Van Cleef was thanking God that he was already dead given the tortures I’d devised for him if he still lived.

“Becca,” I called as I grabbed the pen she had looked at from the display. The box was heavier than I’d thought and I almost laughed as I hoped it was worth the money. I waggled it at her and dropped it in the cart.

Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. “Really?” she said.

I winked and grabbed another, adding it to the pile. She ran back and hugged me. I held her tight before she started wiggling and squirming for me to let her go. She darted off back to the pens as I watched and sighed yet again.

She was growing up.

“Let’s get Anna’s stuff,” she said as she came back and dumped some pens into the cart.

She really was growing up. I could only hope that Edward could see how beautifully she was.


	2. Chapter 2

Church had been relatively uneventful. Becca and Anna had learned something new in Sunday school, or so they told me. I still hadn’t heard what it was, and mostly assumed that the something new probably had to do with cooties or something along those lines.

Becca was definitely into boys, much to Sylvie and Gwen’s dismay. They had hoped that she would have more sense than that, but… And whatever Becca did or liked, Anna wasn’t far behind trying to keep up. It was adorable. And very sweet when Becca slowed down enough to let her join in.

We were the only ones at the part that afternoon. The weather was remaining very steady. Hot and dry, and making sweat drip off our arms. We’d played a game of tag, and Anna had demanded follow the leader. Then there was the round of hide and seek where I, for some reason—I don’t know, maybe because nothing there was grown up size, was always being found.

I finally collapsed miserably onto one of the shaded benches when they began climbing on the jungle gym and taking headfirst races down the slides. There were some things grownups weren’t meant to do. These were two of them.

I did, however, notice that there was new company at the park. But I didn’t recognize him. Which was saying a lot, I knew most of the families that frequented the playground. And their children. I found the best babysitters here, and Becca and Anna had made several friends.

He was wearing jeans, which wasn’t unusual, and a long-sleeved shirt, which piqued my curiosity. No one in their right mind was outside in long sleeves today. Add to that the baseball cap he kept tucked low over his head, and he gave me the creeps.

I brushed off the feeling of unease and watched the girls from where I had collapsed. I did keep an ear out for the guy, but he wasn’t doing anything, just seemed to be content to sit there. He was watching the girls, but he wasn’t giving on weirdo pervert vibes.

Just kind of sad, and I wondered for a moment if he had children.

And then Anna was screaming with laughter and I was jerking my head around to see what was wrong before I realized it was nothing. Becca was dangling by her knees from the jungle gym imitating a monkey. Right down to the noises and scratching at her armpits.

I laughed and finally got up and went back over to them, draping myself against the hot metal. “Are you guys ready to go home yet?” I asked, knowing that they weren’t.

It was out ritual, but they knew they only had another hour or so. But for now, it was a game of begging and pleading to stay until I gave in. Which I did, rather easily today. I was tired.

“Mom,” Becca was saying to me when I finally paid attention again. “Who’s that guy?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know him.”

“Oh.”

“Why?” I asked. I thought he was bothering Becca at first, but she didn’t look overly upset.

“He’s watching you,” she said before she clambered back up on the jungle gym, followed by Anna.

“Not so high, Anna,” I called out as I started towards the guy. He looked rather harmless, but I’d known a lot of people who hadn’t looked as dangerous as they really were. Hell, I was one of them. And he looked even more harmless as he stood up, wobbling slightly as he reached for a cane that lay on the bench next to him.

As much as I don’t like to take advantage of people, I stretched my stride so that he couldn’t get away faster than I got to him, and he limped a few more painful looking steps before stopping and turning. It was then that I noticed he was wearing sunglasses underneath the brim of the hat, and I felt a chill run down my spine.

I might trust my instincts, but I was thinking that maybe I needed to rethink the non-perverted vibe stance. Even though I really didn’t think he was a pedophile, was really creepy.

He smiled at me and I stopped cold, a few steps away. I could have touched him if I’d held a handout, but I didn’t want to. I just wanted to find out why he was watching us, and then make him go away.

“Hello,” he said softly. I caught the faintest trace of an accent, vaguely hoarse and very tired.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You were watching us. Why?”

He held a hand up, and I noticed how thin it was, and dull curving scars up the fingers. I held back the questions, it wasn’t my business. Instead, I watched him, waiting for him to answer me.

He shook his head. “I wasn’t watching. You just have a lovely family,” he said in the same low tone.

A scream split the air followed by, “Look, Mommy! Look!”

Becca and Anna were both perched at the top of the jungle gym. I glared. “Off, now. Both of you,” I called back to them, and watched long enough to make sure that they were listening and doing as I said. When they hit the ground and Becca started turning cartwheels I turned back to the man who was still standing there.

He was watching them again, and my nerves started getting the better of me. “You’re watching them,” I said flatly.

His jaw tensed. “I’m sorry. I had daughters once. They just reminded me,” he said, trailing off.

His fingers grasped the handle of the cane convulsively and I searched for words to tell him how sorry I was. I couldn’t even imagine what I’d do if something had happened to the girls. I’d almost lost it when something nearly had all those years ago.

But instead of them dying, I’d lost Edward. It was very nearly as bad.

In the end all I could say was, “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he almost whispered. He spoke so softly I almost couldn’t hear him.

And the tension of the moment was broken by Anna rushing up, her dark curls bouncing merrily around her face. “Look, Mommy,” she said as she threw herself toward the ground.

For a moment my heart stopped and I thought I’d be taking a trip to the emergency room for a broken something or a gashed body part. But she caught herself, shoving her hands on the ground and then flipping over. Kind of.

It was the most pitiful cartwheel I’d ever seen, her body mostly bent in half, feet leaving the ground for maybe a few inches before hitting it again. And it was the cutest damned thing I’d ever seen.

“That’s a great cartwheel, sweetie,” I said to her. She beamed at me before running back to Becca, and I turned back to the stranger. The least I could do was apologize for thinking he was a pedophile.

He was staring at her, I could tell it even with the sunglasses on. His mouth opened for a moment, and he swallowed. “That’s Anna?” he asked faintly.

And that made my skin crawl. I hadn’t said her name in front of him, of that much I was sure. But he already knew it, knew what she looked like well enough to ask an informed question. My hands itched for the Browning, which was safely tucked away at the house in the gun safe; I never took it to church.

But I had a knife. It wasn’t much, but it would do. My right hand crept down to my pants pocket, and I slid my hand in, feeling the cool firm grip of the knife, ready to pull it and slice him open from one end to the other.

And I very nearly did, but I couldn’t. I just kind of stared at him in a dazed fear. Who was he? How did he know who Anna was? If he knew who she was, then he knew who I was. Was he another one of Van Cleef’s men?

I’d gotten the occasional few since I’d killed him, but none that had cared to stay and tangle with me or mine. Well, there was the one. But I’d let Asher have him since he was so pretty.

“How do you know who she is?” I grated out, trying to hide the fear.

And I watched him sigh, watched his mouth move, heard his voice as it softly said, “I hadn’t planned for it to go like this.” Then he was pulling the sunglasses off, pushing the baseball cap back, tossing them on the bench as he continued to lean on his cane.

“Hello, Anita,” he said.

I shook my head. “No,” I whispered, suddenly feeling my anger and fear drain away to be replaced with a soul deep weariness. “No. No, oh no.”

The last thing I saw before everything went to black was piercing blue eyes and sun glinting off of blond hair. Then… Then there was absolutely nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke to the pleasant feeling of cool sheets around me, and the last bit of light was filtering through a crack in the curtains. There was a fairly good smell coming from the direction of the kitchen, and my stomach growled a little as I glanced at the clock. It was almost seven, and I sat up with a start.

Becca and Anna. I had gone to sleep and left Becca watching Anna. Oh, bad me. And she’d gone and started dinner and hadn’t woke me up.

It was then that I saw the pale head peek around the edge of the door. Becca was peering into the darkness and trying to see if I was awake. I waved a hand, pushing my hair out of my face with the other. I’d let it get long, too long really, and it was always falling around my face unless I pulled it back.

“You let me sleep,” I said in a sleepy, fuzzy tone. “You should have waked me up. What’s your sister doing?”

I pushed the sheet off of me as Becca came in and perched on the edge of the bed. I looked down as I swung my legs over; I didn’t remember changing clothes, but I was wearing pajama pants now, and a white t-shirt. I must have been more tired than I thought, I mused.

“She’s watching _The Little Mermaid_ again,” she said.

“So what are you cooking?” I stood and stretched, lifting my arms over my head and letting my back arch. My head went back, my neck popping a bit and my hair brushing over my butt. “It smells good.”

“I’m not cooking anything,” she said as she got back up and started walking out the door to the kitchen. “Daddy’s making chicken paella.”

The foreign word tripped rather easily from her tongue, and I was struggling to figure out where she’d learned it, and the dish, when it hit me. Daddy’s making. Daddy. _Daddy_.

Then it really hit me and I staggered. He was taking the sunglasses and hat off, and it was Edward. My Edward, it was my Edward and I was running for the kitchen, my socks skidding on the tile as I shot around the corner and there he was.

As thin as I had remembered, the cane propped against the counter, carefully stirring a full pot. His jeans were faded and wrinkled, and he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt now that was just as wrinkled as the jeans. His boots were scuffed, and his hair was too long around his face, curling wildly at the ends.

And I could see scars. New scars, that he hadn’t had years before. There were so many of them, on his hands and his arms. I could see one running up the side of his throat and into his hairline behind his ear. He turned to me, his face empty, eyes cautious. My world spun.

Then his hands were on me, guiding me to a chair at the table and pushing my head down. “Put your head between your knees, Anita. Take deep breathes. Just breathe,” he was saying.

I couldn’t, I was crying. I wrapped my arms around his neck and just held on to him as I cried. There was no way of making sense of it, just knowing that he was there, and I was touching him, was hard enough to cope with. He was alive. He was _alive_.

I kissed him then, my fingers skimming through his hair as I held to him, and then I asked, “How?”

His eyes were wide but he answered me quickly and without hesitation. “Van Cleef set us up. He made me a deal: if I went with him he’d leave you and the girls alone.”

“But the blood, Edward, you were dead,” I said softly. I knew he had been dead, even I wouldn’t have missed him still breathing.

He shook his head. “He cut me for the blood. And back then I could hold my breath for several minutes.” He glanced down, tilting his head as my fingers ran up his scalp feeling the roughened scar where I had remembered a bullet hole.

But then, I thought, I had never seen it. I’d only seen blood. Only assumed that he had been dead. I pushed into him with my magic, but there was nothing. It was exactly as it should have been, because Edward was a magical null.

I swallowed. “You came back.”

He nodded, his eyes cautious, his whole expression guarded. “I came back when I heard that Van Cleef was dead.”

“But that was three years ago!”

He didn’t say anything, just kind of groaned as he pushed himself to his feet and limped back over to the stove, stirring the food and reaching back to cut the burner off. He moved it to one of the cold burners before grabbing his cane and walking back over to me.

“I came as soon as I could Anita,” was all he would say. “We should eat, paella is best when it’s fresh.”

Dinner was a painful thing for me. And frightening. My mind was racing back and forth from Edward to the girls, and I was afraid that they wouldn’t take it well, him coming back so suddenly. I was afraid that he’d look at Anna and see what I saw every time I looked at her.

Him.

She had her father’s eyes. And I was so scared that he would realize it, and would hate me. There was so much I had to tell him, had to explain. And there was no time, it seemed, with everything moving so fast.

My fears were laid to rest, though, as Anna crawled up on Edward’s lap to finish her movie after dinner. She fell asleep there, and I put her to bed before he could even offer to do it. Then it was time to tuck Becca in, even though she’d asked me to quit. But I wanted to talk to her.

“Are you okay?” I asked her as I pulled her blanket up to her chin.

She nodded, unfazed as she snuggled into her pillow. “Daddy said that the bad people had him.”

And that was more than I knew. Color me shocked. But that was that, and she reached out and turned her light out, giving me the hint to leave. But as I was closing the door, I heard her muffled voice. “I’ll watch Anna in the morning if you want to sleep in.”

Then the door was closed and I was trying not to blush at her implications. I turned around, trying to think of a valid way to explain to her that Mommy and Daddy don’t have sex, not that Becca needed to know about sex, and almost walked right into Edward.

He was standing behind me, watching me, leaning on his cane. “I think that you should take her up on her offer.”

My eyes shot wide open. “No, no,” I said. “I’ll watch Anna. I’m not… I mean, it’s not like we’re going to do anything tonight.”

I edged around him, trying not to touch him, and his hand shot out and wrapped around my arm like a vise. I stopped and looked up into his eyes. They were a burning blue as he stared at me, leaned over until his mouth was almost touching mine.

“Oh, I can think of something you’ll be doing.” His eyes were hot as he looked at me, and I could feel the chills running down my spine. “I can think of lots of things. We need to talk.”


	4. Chapter 4

It shouldn’t feel strange for a wife to have her husband in her bedroom. But it was decidedly nerve wracking for me to have Edward in my room. It was insane for him just to be in my house. By all accounts, he was a dead man. He had a grave and headstone for heaven’s sake.

But regardless, as I curled under the sheet, trying to make sense of it all, he was sitting at the foot of my bed. Watching me with an unfathomable expression on his face, and I fought to keep myself from flushing. Everything I had said to him those last days was coming back, and I was sick with the memories.

“You wanted to talk?” I said quietly, pleased that my voice was even and normal sounding. At least it wasn’t shaking, which was nothing short of a miracle. I was impressed that the bed wasn’t vibrating. I was terrified of what he would say.

“You’ve changed,” he almost whispered.

I shot a terrified glance at his face, but there wasn’t a hidden agenda that I could find. No, it was honest to God emotion. He looked upset. Unhappy, and hurt. “Five years will do that, Edward,” I commented. “You’ve changed, too.”

His hand slid over the bed to lightly touch my ankle and it felt like electricity through the sheet. “I never thought I’d see you again,” he whispered.

My heart twisted at his words and it was all I could do to keep from crying. “Well, you’re here now. You’re seeing me. See? I’m fine,” I said, choking on the words. “We’re all fine.”

It was the wrong thing to say, I think, and his face fell. Then I realized how it had sounded. That we were fine without him there. Without him, period. I didn’t think as I moved, sliding the sheet down and crawling to the end of the bed to sit with him, winding my arms around him and trying not to shiver as his arms slid around me.

He wasn’t the Edward I remembered. Not, really, he wasn’t. Now he was whipcord muscle, sinew and bone. There was nothing left but that and the scars, the deadly grace of his movement interrupted by the limping gait he now used. It hurt, just to sit there and hold to him, knowing that he had gone through something terrible.

“We missed you,” I whispered into the scarred curve of his neck, hot tears scalding my cheeks. “_I_ missed you.”

“Shh, don’t cry,” he whispered as he kissed me. “I’m here now, Anita,” and it only made me cry harder as I pressed my lips to his.

For something that was absolutely wrong, something that I should not be doing, it felt wonderfully right as he laid me back on the bed, hands caressing my body as we slowly undressed each other. I probably wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye for days, he probably wouldn’t speak to me once we’d talked, but for now we could just pretend that everything was okay, that it was going to be okay.

There were whispers and soft words, and my own whimpers as he slid into me. I tried not to cry, tried not to let him see how upset I was as my hands relearned the shape of his body, traced the pathways that his scars gave him. He was covered in them and I was afraid to know what they were from.

I clung to him, fiercely glad that Van Cleef was dead, and kissed him again as I tightened around him, my orgasm hard and furious as his body pressed against me. Another moment and he gasped my name, body shuddering as he came inside me, and then I pulled him down into my arms.

When it was over we lay sprawled on the bed. I was on my side with one leg twined about his, and the rest of me nestled firmly against his body. One of Edward’s arms wrapped around my shoulders, and my fingers traced the patter of the scars across his ribs to his chest and then back down the other side.

“How?” I asked softly, not wanting to shatter the stillness and peace of the night. The only light came from the lamp next to the bed, and it played across his face making deep valleys and planes of his features.

Edward laid a hand over mine, pressing it to his skin and stilling the motion. “From the beginning?” he asked. I nodded, he sighed. “Just remember, you asked.”

“The warehouse,” he said. “When you turned around, and I was on the ground. That’s where it started. When he knocked you out, I was still awake. He hadn’t hit me very hard; he just wanted you to be out of the equation. Van Cleef wanted me to come back, to work for him again.”

“I refused. Big mistake,” he said, laughing harshly. “That was when he used you and the girls as leverage. He knew me better than I’d thought. Better than I knew me. The girls, I’d have died for them. I thought I could let him have you… I couldn’t. I agreed to go back if he left you alone, if he walked away from all of you and let you be.”

“So we arranged it. He fired a shot into the wall, I let him slice my head up, then I laid down and waited. Pretended to be dead. He dragged you in and then brought the girls, and you woke up…”

“And I assumed you were dead,” I finished for him.

He nodded, fingers making lazy circles on my back. “That was the idea. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was to follow him out of that building.” He breathed a deep breath, let it out on a shuddering exhale. “But the deal was I go with him. So I went.”

One of the hardest, he’d said. I wanted to ask him what the others were, so badly. But I was more afraid of what I’d hear. I was afraid of what he was about to tell me; I almost told him to stop. But there was that little voice in my head that made me stay quiet, forced me to listen to him as a captive audience.

His voice grew rough as he talked. “He wanted me to go on a mission, I refused.” His free hand touched one of the scars across his stomach and his jaw tightened. “So he decided to persuade me.”

“All of this?” I asked softly.

“Not all, just most,” he answered. “When his torture didn’t work he used you again. Said he’d hurt you and the girls. Even Anna,” and his voice broke. “She was just a baby, and I didn’t want him hurting any of you. So I went to Venezuela and did what he wanted me to do. Infiltrated another organization. Got his information.”

He took a deep breath. “When I heard that Van Cleef was dead, he’d already been that way for almost two years. It took me nearly a year to get out, another two months trying to heal enough to get back to the States. I came as soon as I could, but I wasn’t even sure that you’d want to see me.”

“Besides, I’m no good to you like this,” he finished.

I smoothed a hand over the scars, letting my fingers brush them one by one. “You’re plenty of good to me, Edward. And the girls. They need you. You’re their father.”

His whole body tensed. He rolled away from me, sitting up and reaching for the discarded clothing on the floor. “No, I’m not,” he said, and I winced. This was my fault, this part of it. I needed to tell him, had to tell.

I was going to tell him.

And the moment I realized it, made the decision, I felt so much better. No matter if he was angry, hated me, at least I could make this one thing right. And then we could go from there.

“Edward,” I began, my hand on his pale back. And then the phone rang and I cursed. Edward shot a look at me, I think he was impressed with my vocabulary, but I didn’t care. “I’m sorry, I have to take this.”

He nodded, ever understanding, and I grabbed the phone. “This better be good,” I growled into it, and sighed when it Judge Moran.

“We got a live one. Need you to get it before dawn or we’re in some serious shit when he rises,” he was saying. This was why I liked getting my orders of execution from Moran. He was a straight shooter and funny, too.

“Why so late?” I asked as I started pulling on my underwear, and digging out jeans and a shirt.

He snorted. “Some loving family member sat on the document. The wife just found it and gave it to her lawyer a couple hours ago. Can you get there?”

I glanced back at Edward, he was sitting there with his jeans in one hand, the sheet tangled around his waist. “Yeah. But it better not take long.”

“Stab ‘em and slab ‘em, Blake,” was all he said and then hung up. I tried not to laugh at that. No one I knew ever said goodbye to me anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun wasn’t up when I got to the hospital; the body was in the morgue below it awaiting an autopsy. It was obvious what the man had died from—a vampire attack—but it was still required, and they wouldn’t do it until they knew for sure that he wasn’t going to rise and scream bloody murder at the never healing Y-incision down his front.

I only had a small shoulder bag with me; I had left my regular vampire bag in the car. It was heavy and I didn’t need to frighten people by carrying a duffle bag through the hospital. It was bad enough that I was carrying a gun; I hadn’t worn anything over it since I was on official business and I wanted it available for an emergency.

I didn’t glance right or left, didn’t want to see anyone staring at me as I passed, just headed straight for the stairwell that lead below. There was a service elevator that they used to move bodies, but I avoided it at all costs. It always made me think ‘giant metal coffin’ instead of a mode of transportation.

As always, I dropped the bag at the main doors. They were tall and wide, and a brilliantly polished stainless steel that swung easily on its hinges. I knelt and undid the lock on the bag, thankful that I had upgraded a bit into a Samsonite specialty. It was the same color on the outside as the old one; in fact, the outside really was the old one.

I’d just paid them a lot of money to line the inside so that it couldn’t be cut through and add the very nearly unbreakable zipper as well as the large eyes to loop the lock. I’d had the same thing done with my zombie kit. It wouldn’t do to have someone get a hold of something they shouldn’t have.

And I always carried weapons on me, so I never worried about not getting to them in time either.

I laid the lock on the floor and carefully withdrew the tools I would need; a stake, a mallet. Old fashioned. And the newly improved syringe full of silver nitrate. It really was as good as Edward said, and I always injected it before I took the heart.

I hadn’t really done that part for me the last several years. With a syringe full of the liquid silver, there was no way the vampire I had executed would rise. But it made everyone else feel better to have the extreme visual of a gaping hole in a chest.

That done, I locked it again and pocketed the syringe. I had no fear that I’d get stabbed and injected, it was a spring-loaded syringe and the cap had to be off to activate the needle. The stake and mallet were as discreet as possible in my left hand as I pushed through the right door with the other.

The first thing I noticed was the quiet. It wasn’t unusual for the morgue, especially in the wee hours of the morning. But the overturned gurney in the middle of the room, and the pair of feet sticking out from underneath it, were more than unusual. In fact, the only thing that was usual about it was that a revenant had done it.

I immediately put the stake and mallet down, going fluidly to my knees and then standing back up, gun in hand as I began searching what I could see. The man lying behind the gurney was most likely dead, but on the off chance that he wasn’t I needed to get to him.

With my other hand I was pulling my cell phone out of my other pocket and dialing Dolph’s number for memory. I stepped around a corner just as the ringing stopped and he picked up, only to hear me say, “Oh, God.”

“Anita?” he asked hurriedly. “What’s wrong?”

“A revenant, Dolph. At the hospital morgue. I need you guys now,” I said. “He’s already killed one.”

I was faced with the broken and bloodied body of some poor doctor, most likely the medical examiner on call. She was drained completely, though not entirely by the vampire. Her head had been torn almost the entire way off, but on a closer look I realized it had been chewed through.

I clenched my jaw for a second as my stomach tried to rebel against the new information, then I looked away, continuing my search of the morgue. “Hurry,” I muttered to Dolph as I hung the phone up and slid it back into my pocket.

I began searching in earnest, a two-handed hold on the Browning and every step I made taking me closer to the gurney. I could see blood pooling around the ankles, but it didn’t seem like it was as much as it could be for a dead person, and I hoped that whoever it was, was still alive.

Then my hip buzzed. It was the phone, and I jerked it out and up to my face before it could ring. “What the fuck do you want?” I hissed into the phone as I looked frantically around, hoping that the revenant hadn’t decided to come after me while the phone buzzed.

There was nothing there, and I could hear talking in the background. “We’re at the back entrance, Anita. Just hold tight until we’re there to back you up.” It was Dolph again, and I sighed.

“Okay,” I said back. “I’m just going to check this body and see if they’re alive.”

I guess he didn’t think it was a good idea, because I heard him yelling at me not to do anything and to wait for him, but I hung up and then turned the phone off as I knelt to pull the simple blue sheet back from the body.

My face fell as I saw the myriad of bites along his neck and shoulders. He would have been handsome, but for that, and I knew that eventually I’d probably be back to stake him, too. I sighed and bent back down to flick the sheet over his head.

That was when I noticed that his eyes weren’t closed anymore.

“Oh, fuck,” I whispered as I backpedaled furiously, trying not to trip or slide in the blood on the floor. I was very near to the door when a pale hand came up over the gurney, grasping it and then his face peered over it, eyes wide and utterly mad.

“Dolph!” I screamed as I took aim and started squeezing off rounds carefully.

Two went past his head and buried themselves in the porcelain tile of the wall behind him. Another one went wide into one of the morgue refrigerator’s doors. I hit him twice as he continued pulling himself to standing, but he was moving so slowly and I was moving so fast that I couldn’t seem to get aimed properly.

My two shots took him in the left arm and side, and a handful more sliding past him to the wall or tearing holes in the steel of the gurney. “Dolph, I need you guys!” I screamed again as he went over the gurney.

It happened too fast, really. There was no way I could have stopped it, maybe ducked a bit and gotten out of the worst of the blow, but his hands were around my throat and shoulders, splayed wide, fingers digging in and I knew that I was being bruised simply from the pressure and pain.

And then my head hit the wall and I didn’t know anymore.

I came around for a moment and tried talking to them. There were people hovering over me, yelling and doing things. I tried to say, “oww,” as I felt the prick of a needle pressing into my arm, but somehow I just couldn’t seem to get the breath to do it.

There was pain in my head, radiating from back to front, and my throat hurt. It felt like someone had taken a razorblade and just started slash at it, cutting deeper and deeper with each try. But even that slowly faded and then there was nothing again.

The next time I woke I was in a dark room. Well, mostly dark. There was a faint glow from the IV machine I was hooked to, I realized I looked down to see why my elbow itched. There was another light coming from the hallway where the door was propped open, and I could see that there was a person asleep in a chair next to my bed.

I started to sit up and groaned as the motion made my head explode in brilliant waves of pain. There was something to be said for hospitals, and painkillers were one of them. Actually, it was the only good thing I could come up with.

“’Nita?” came a mostly sleepy reply.

It was Dolph, of all people. I tried not to look upset, but for a moment I’d actually thought that it might have been Edward. That maybe he had come to wait for me to wake up. I swallowed the knot of tears down and gave him a watery smile.

“Dolph,” I said softly, not wanting to make the ache in my head worse. “Did you get him?”

He shook his head. “No, but he got you.”

I lifted my hand to my neck and felt the thick bandages there, and groaned. “Why does this happen to me? I quit. Absolutely fucking quit. And I’m moving to Jamaica. There can’t be vampires in Jamaica.”

There was a clicking noise at the door, and the lights came on. I squinted my eyes shut as someone said, “Actually there are vampires. A few. But they’re not the ones you have to worry about in Jamaica.”

“God hates me,” I muttered.

It’s not bad enough that I’m trapped in the hospital for an unspecified amount of time, but now Edward has to come in being an insufferable know-it-all. But I smiled at him anyway. Dolph shifted in his chair, glancing from me to Edward and then back again.

“I think this is my cue to leave,” he said to me. He pressed a hand to my forehead, looking very closely at me. “Be more careful in the future, okay?”

Then he headed out of the room, pausing as he passed Edward. “And someday, I’d like to know how you’re still alive.” Which left me alone with Edward, though not exactly how I wanted it.

“How long was I out?” I asked as I began searching for the call button. I really wanted an aspirin for my head. Or something. Maybe I’d get good drugs that would work quickly.

Edward limped over to the chair and sat, leaning the cane against my bed and staring at me. “Almost two days. You fractured your skull, Anita.”

“Which would explain why I feel like elephants have been tap-dancing on my head. Or in it.” I grimaced as I finally found the damned button, having to sit up a little to wrap my fingers around it. I pressed the button a couple of times in rapid succession, hoping that there was someone free to come quickly.

He sat there as still as a stone for a moment. “The girls are with the pack now, at the Circus. They wouldn’t let me go along, said I’d have to okay it with you first.” I watched him carefully, my nerves tightening as his voice grew colder with each word.

“They’re safe. Hell, the pack knew that you were hurt before I did. Everyone knew before I did. You didn’t call me. Why didn’t you call me?”

His eyes looked so hurt, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Everything that ran through my head was going to hurt him, but I had to answer. And I had to tell him the truth. And as I opened my mouth to say it, the nurse walked in smiling at me.

She was the only thing saving me from wrecking what was left of my friendship and relationship with Edward. And God, I was terrified of her leaving. Because the look in his eyes wasn’t friendly. It was cold, and hard. And hurt.

No, can’t forget that. And hurt.


	6. Chapter 6

“It wasn’t something I had any control over, Edward,” I began after the nurse had left the room. She had inquired about my head, given me some wonderful drugs that would make it stop hurting, and then left me there feeling very woozy and completely open for Edward to be mad at.

I wanted to cry.

“You weren’t here; I had to keep the girls safe. If anything happened to me, the pack came for them and Asher guarded them.” I reached up to flick the light above the bed on. The harsh glare of the overhead fluorescents was making my eyes ache.

Edward took the hint and stood, making his way slowly to the switch and turning them off. He was watching me carefully as he came back, and leaned over the bed staring instead of sitting. His hand was cool on my skin, and his eyes worried.

“You scared me, Anita,” he said. “You could have died.”

“But I didn’t?”

It was a question. I really didn’t know for sure. I hadn’t known when it happened in Santa Fe, or even after Jean-Claude died. Not really. But he shook his head, and I felt a not-so-small wave of relief wash over me. I really didn’t want to die again, not even if they managed to bring me back.

“Anita,” he said as he sat back down. “I couldn’t even go with them.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as he stared at me. “I’m sorry, Edward.”

“Were you going to tell anyone that I was alive? That I was back?” he asked, his tone cold and sharp, like ice after a storm when it razors into your flesh.

I winced at that. I hadn’t even thought about how to tell anyone, much less of telling the news. I was just kind of grateful. And afraid. I’d spent so long being a ‘single mom’ that I never even thought of becoming half of ‘mom and dad.’ But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to tell anyone.

“It’s not like that, Edward, and you know it,” I shot back, finally feeling more like myself as anger wove its way up my spine in a hot line. “You’ve barely been back, and you expect me to just suddenly change my life around to suit you.”

He raised a yellow eyebrow at me, but I ignored him and continued. “You already made your life to suit you. And mine and the girls, assuming that it was better,” and my voice turned mocking, “that you pretend you were dead and leave us on our own.”

“Do you know how many nights Becca has cried herself to sleep because she believed you had been killed? Do you know how many times I’ve had to explain to Anna that her Daddy was dead?” I shut my mouth after that one, face flushing and going pale as I realized exactly what I’d said.

Edward, though, didn’t seem to have paid any attention to it. He was still sitting there, apparently calm. Until I glanced down at his hands, where they were wrapped, white knuckled around the chair arms. So maybe he caught what I said.

“Edward,” I breathed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

And I really didn’t. He didn’t know it was the truth, I still hadn’t told him, and I really had to. I buried my face in my hands, the drugged daze not helping the situation. I was lightheaded and trying to make sense of words as I said them, and nothing was coming out right. But I still had to tell him.

Now.

“Edward,” I began, and uncovered my face, opened my eyes to look at him. It was a mistake, I knew that the moment my eyes met his. They were bright and hot and furious. Full of barely repressed rage. And I shuddered without thinking about it.

“Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out?” he asked me, his voice barely a whisper. “Did you really think I wouldn’t know?”

“Edward,” I said, pleading.

“You lied to me out of spite, and hate. Lied to me, and then have the audacity to flaunt what you think I don’t know in my face.” His fingernails were digging into the wood of the chair, and I shook my head.

“It wasn’t like that, Edward. Please, it wasn’t, and I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Please? You’re sorry?” he echoed, incredulity blatant in his voice. It rose more. “When were you going to tell me, Anita? When were you going to tell me about Anna?”

“Please, Edward,” I said, trying to get him to calm down.

“When the fuck were you going to tell me that I had a daughter, Anita?” he nearly yelled, and it broke something in me.

I could feel tears hot on my face, and I rubbed my hands over my cheeks. This was bad. This was worse than bad. He was standing up then, grabbing his cane, ignoring my attempts to make him stay and listen to me, at least hear me out.

I couldn’t take it, him leaving. I pushed myself up, the IV yanking out of my arm as I swung my legs over the bed and slid off to stand and follow. Almost immediately I was hit by a wave of dizziness, and I stopped, clutching to the bed and trying to just stay upright.

“I’ve been trying to tell you, Edward,” I said after him. He paused. “Since last night. Been trying to tell you about her, and me, and everything.” I stopped then, my words were starting to slur a bit and my head was starting to ache again all of the sudden.

“Not last night,” he said, most of the fight gone out of his voice. “Two days ago.”

And without the drugs things started clicking. He was angry that I hadn’t told him about Anna, but he was furious that he’d spent two days now not being allowed near them. And everyone in the pack knew he was Anna’s father.

Which made me wonder why they wouldn’t let him near her, until I thought that maybe they were too frightened that it would make me angry if they disobeyed my orders and let him see them. They couldn’t know that I didn’t care. Not when I had already made it painfully obvious that I expected my orders to be followed, especially when it concerned my family.

“I’m going to pick the girls up. Make sure that it’s acceptable, Anita.” The ice had returned, and I shivered again, trying not to slump down to the floor. My hands groped, found the buzzer for the nurse. I pressed the button. I was fighting so hard to stay conscious that I very nearly missed what he said next.

“Let me know when you’re getting out. We can make arrangements for custody of the girls, then.”

And then he was gone, and I was being helped back into the bed. Or maybe he wasn’t gone, or had been gone a while. But it kept repeating in my head. _Custody of the girls_. An issue for separation and divorce. Something I didn’t want, not from Edward.

I’d already been separated from him for five years. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life without him. I turned to my side, trying not to cry because it would only make the ache in my head worse, and only crying harder because of it.

Because Edward had never pulled his punches when it came to me, and I highly doubted that he’d listen if I were to tell him, “I love you.”

After all, he hadn’t listened tonight when I was begging forgiveness. But I should have expected it. Edward placed a great deal of trust in me never to lie to him. We may never have seen these circumstances when we established those rules, but it was too late now.

I’d already lost him.


	7. Chapter 7

I was released after three days in the hospital. Three long and mostly alone days. Edward didn’t come back by. I knew that he wouldn’t, had seen it on his face as he’d walked out before. I’d spoken with Asher about Edward, explained what I could and plead lack of sleep and a headache to get out of the rest.

But I made sure that Edward could pick them up.

Some of the pack and pard had come to visit me while I was there, but they generally left after a few minutes. I wasn’t making myself very good company, and the only thing I really did was run up a massive long-distance bill on the phone. Asher was too busy working, Elmer, too, so I called Marianne.

Edward wouldn’t talk to me, the girls only talked for a few minutes. Then they would hang up, too excited that their father was back. No one ever offered to bring them to visit. But then, I’m sure Edward didn’t bring it up, only made it perfectly clear that it was his time. After all, I’d had years with them, he’d had a lot less.

The revenant was making news. It had popped up all over the eastern side of St. Louis, attacking humans and vampires without disregard. So far it hadn’t attacked any weres, but not for lack of trying. They were just too damned fast to be snuck up on by an insane vampire.

Edward picked me up the day that I was released. He still wouldn’t speak to me, only got me settled in the Jeep before limping back around it and getting in. the ride was long and miserable, and it was even worse when we got to the house. Tension so thick that you could cut it with a knife, but he didn’t make a move to get out.

So neither did I. I knew that he was still sitting there because he had something to say. It was just a matter of getting it over with so that I could try and go back to my life, pick up the pieces that Edward had shattered it into and try and pretend everything was normal.

“The girls aren’t here,” he said into the silence.

“Oh.”

“I thought we could talk before I went and got them.”

“About what?” I asked.

His voice was empty as he answered. “I wanted to know if I could stay here until everything is settled and I get my own place.”

“You’re going to stay in St. Louis?” I blurted out, surprised.

He looked at me like I was insane. “Of course I’m staying here. Why would I leave?”

“I just thought…” I let my sentence trail offer. I couldn’t tell him what had been running through my head. _I just thought you’d take the girls from me and leave._ Even to me it didn’t sound right, and I was sure that no matter how angry Edward was he wouldn’t try and do something like that.

“It was nothing,” I finished lamely, half shrugging as I looked at the dash. “Um, I can get your stuff back to you if you give me a few days to get everything together.”

He raised an eyebrow. “My stuff,” he drawled, and I tried not to shrink down into my seat.

I was utterly mortified. How did you talk to someone in a situation like this? I sure as hell didn’t know, and I was making a mess of it no matter how I tried to put things. I sighed and cradled my head in my hands, trying to ignore the pounding of the not quite healed fractures as I did.

“God, none of this is coming out right,” I muttered. I felt his fingers brush my hair and tried to stay perfectly still, hoping that he would touch me, not just that little moment. But he didn’t, and I sighed. “Your stuff, Edward. As in the money you left us, anything from when we sold your house. All that.”

He laughed a little. “Anita, I don’t need that money back. I have plenty still.” And with that he left me alone in the Jeep as he took my bag in ahead of me.

It was another week before I was well enough to go hunting, and other week of attacks and murders. Another week of hell because it was my fault. I thought I would go crazy having to sit around until I was cleared to go out, but Dolph had taken the high road and convinced his superiors not to let me on the case until after I had gotten the okay from my doctor.

Edward took up residence in my office; I talked Jason and Richard into moving my things out of it and moving a bed in. I told Edward that it had been in storage with a few other things of his, and he got the most surprised look on his face as he kneeled down.

A practiced rapping against the wood of the frame and a secret drawer popped out. I watched without saying anything, he simply laughed as he reached in and lifted out a dusty Beretta and clip. “I never got rid of all of your stuff,” I said to him as he broke the gun down and reassembled it, pulling the trigger a few times in dry runs.

“What else of mine do you have?” he asked, eyes careful on me as I turned and walked out.

He followed me, not touching me as I grabbed my purse and headed out the door. I stood next to the Jeep as I waited for him to come up, not surprised when he locked the door behind him in less than a minute. “Two blocks north, three blocks east,” was all I would say.

He followed my directions, parking in the small entrance lot of a storage facility. I got out, pressed a few buttons on the gate’s electronic lock, and then to one of the buildings, pulling a key from my purse and letting myself into it. He followed, as silent as death, as I walked down the aisles until I came to a large doorway, sliding another key into the lock on it.

With a loud rumble it rolled up and Edward gasped. “I thought you said you didn’t get rid of all of it, Anita,” he said thickly as his hands slid over more dusty wood, boxes labeled neatly as his clothes, books, anything and everything that he had owned.

“Your house. I only sold your house,” I said.

“The Hummer?” he asked, turning to me.

I shook my head, waiting for him to step out before closing and locking the door again. He followed me out another door, to an outer entry and again waited as I unlocked and lifted the door. I passed him the keys to the Hummer wordlessly as he went in, opened a door, and glanced back at me.

Then he was sliding in and revving the engine, smiling like a child who just got what he wanted on Christmas. “Still runs really good,” he called out.

I nodded. “I know. Would you drive me back home now, please?” I asked.

The drive back was fairly quiet, just the sound of the road beneath the wheels for the few blocks it was. “I’ll have my place ready after you finish this case,” he said as he turned the Jeep off and passed me the keys.

“Okay,” I said.

He glanced over at me. “Do you know when you’ll be able to go out on a hunt?” asked Edward.

I shook my head. “I thought the doctor would clear me yesterday, but he said he was waiting on x-rays.”

His turn to make a noncommittal noise. “Listen,” he began. “I’m going to walk up to the girls’ bus stop. There’re some papers on the counter in the kitchen I need you to sign. Could you do that before I get back?”

I nodded wordlessly and got out, walking in the house without saying anything else. I could see him starting the walk two streets over, and closed the door carefully without slamming it. The keys were dropped on the hall table into a small glass bowl I’d used as a key-catcher for years. My purse next to it, my shoes kicked off.

I went past the answering machine to look at the papers, hoping that they were just legalities in Edward’s miraculous return from the dead. But my hands were shaking as I picked the dark blue folder embossed with an attorney’s letterhead in gold. They were shaking so badly that I had to put the folder back on the counter and get something to drink before I could look at it again.

The iciness of the water as it sweated through the cup seemed to calm me a little, and I sat the glass down next to the folder before picking it back up. A quick flip and it was open, the papers staring at me. For a long time I couldn’t make any sense of them, each line starting with legal terms, and going on like that.

It only got worse as I flipped further through them. I uttered a disgusted curse as I tossed it back down on the counter, taking along drink of the water before the front page caught my eye. There was a seal at the top, the state seal, and in large bold letters underneath the words _Petition for Dissolution of Marriage_.

Dissolution of marriage. Petition for it. They were divorce papers. They made sense now, in that light. Divorce papers, I thought and scanned further down the first page. _Irreconcilable differences_. He was citing that. Oh God, he wasn’t going to forgive me.

I felt my eyes burning and the sudden sting of tears before slamming the folder shut and yanking open the drawer in front of me. It was loosely termed as the junk drawer, but was filled with more useless things that I had ever seen.

I shoved the folder into the back, moving things and layering them on top of it before closing it. There was no way I was signing those papers without talking to Edward first. Or at least Catherine. If anyone could find me a legal loophole to get out of a divorce, it would be her. Especially her, because she had wanted me to be married and happy for years.

She got the married part, but Edward died before I hit happy. And now she would be all gung-ho to give me a chance at that. Edward might not be pleased with me stalling it, but I had to talk to him, show him how sorry I was. It wasn’t even like I was the only person who did anything wrong.

The anger started to burn away at the fear, and I stalked towards my bedroom, intending to take a hot shower before Edward got back. I wanted to be calm and talk like adults. At the very least, I wanted to show the girls that nothing was wrong. I didn’t want them to be worried.

It was then that I noticed that the light on the answering machine was blinking. I smacked the button and waited for the messages to cycle through. There was only one, and as I listened I heard a crackle and then my doctor. “Ms. Blake, I wanted to let you know that I have cleared you to resume your usual activities. I’ve already faxed the report to your employers; if you need anything else, please contact me.”

I smiled as it came to a halt. I yanked the tape out and headed for my room with a change of plans. Without a word I stripped and pulled on black jeans and a black t-shirt, tucking it into my pants and then lacing a belt on. I snapped clips onto it, and slid vials of holy water in before sitting and tying on black military issued boots.

My hunting wardrobe had progressed over the years. I stayed with jeans, but Nike’s and polo shirts weren’t cutting it for me anymore. I skimmed my hair back into a ponytail and then slid on my shoulder holster, checking the Browning before sliding it in and then adding clips.

My duster went over it all, already loaded in anticipation of the clearance. I was ready. I pocketed the tape and headed out to the kitchen, tugging a piece of paper from the pad on the fridge and scribbling a hasty message

_ I’ve gone hunting. _

_ ~A. _

_ _

Edward, at least, would know what it meant. And he would take care of the girls. But I left the cell phone next to the note and only paused to scoop up the keys to the Jeep before running.


	8. Chapter 8

Dawn wasn’t far off when I finally pulled into the drive. Edward had pulled the Hummer half onto the grass so that I’d have room to park. Thoughtful of him, given that he probably would rather me dead. Really want me dead when I finally talked to him.

If I were lucky he’d be asleep and leave me alone when I made it in. Considering my current mood I might very well tell him where he could stick those fucking divorce papers. If I were really lucky he’d leave me alone till I caught the revenant.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

He was lounging on the couch when I opened the door and shut it quietly behind me. He was sitting on the couch with a six-pack in front of him. Only two were empty. A third was in his hand, and he was watching me with the oddest look on his face.

I didn’t say anything, only sat down across from him on the floor and snagged a beer for myself. The cap came off easily as I twisted it with the edge of my shirt, and I grimaced at the slightly bitter taste of it. I didn’t usually drink, much less beer. But the night warranted it. Hell, the last two weeks warranted it.

I nearly jumped when his voice broke the silence. “Rough night at work, honey?” he asked sardonically.

I flipped him the bird.

I knew I looked like hell. My shirt was torn at one shoulder, my jeans and boots caked with dirt and blood—none of it mine, thank God—and my hair was a total loss. It was frizzed out and filthy. I wasn’t even going to remind myself of the mud smeared across my face.

“He got away, _dear_,” I shot back.

The sentiment tripped easy from my tongue and I hoped he wouldn’t make anything of it. It wouldn’t help if he did. I took another gulp of the beer, nearly chugging it down to the foam before sitting it back on the table. The easy feeling I always got when I drank was beginning to slip through me when he spoke again.

“Where’d you put the papers?”

I grabbed another beer and wrapped my fingers around the cap, twisting angrily without thinking. The sharp metal ridges sliced unevenly into my palm and I cursed and stared. Then I shrugged and threw the cap down and raised the beer to my lips. No sense in wasting an excellent beer. Or in answering his question.

“Fuck,” he said and grabbed my hand, scowling as he inspected my new cut. “Why doesn’t anything ever go right with you, Anita?” he asked as he dragged me to my feet and to the kitchen, washing my hand off at the sink and blotting at it with a paper towel.

I shrugged again, the beer still in my grip and my head beginning to swim. Not a wise thing to drink on an empty stomach. Especially since I never held my liquor well in the first place. I jerked my hand back and glared.

“What do you care? You only want to leave again,” I muttered as I took another sip from the bottle.

He snatched the bottle from my fingers and threw it in the sink. It shattered with an almost explosive force, beer and foam splattering the sink and the counter around it, shards of glass tinkling against the metal basin. I stared, first at it, then at him.

“You’re going to wake the girls up,” I said in an even, reasonable tone.

One yellow eyebrow went up. “No, I’m not. They’re at your parents’ house. Spending the week with them.”

“I forgot,” I said before burying my face in my hands. “Fuck. I’m sorry, I forgot. My dad’s taking them to some ice show and the theater and… It’s stupid. Grandparent stuff. I promised them that they could go during Dad’s vacation.”

He watched me without saying a word. My temper began fraying under that passive gaze, and my hand began to throb. What did he want? A miracle? For me to suddenly rearrange everything without a second thought?

I hadn’t even had time for a first thought. And then it all came bubbling out.

“Fuck! What do you want me to do? Change everything? We’ve been doing perfectly well without you for five years and now you come back and nothing is good enough!” My voice was almost loud, and definitely verging on hysterical as the divorce papers flashed through my mind again.

“I had, what? A day, maybe, to even think of you as being alive. And not even that considering that you shocked the sanity out of me by just fucking appearing at the park. I can’t just magically rearrange my life to suit you, your needs. I can’t even magically arrange it for mine. It’s not like I’m not happy you’re alive, but you just spring all this _bullshit_ on me.”

“And yeah, it’s my fault that I lied to you about Anna. But I would have told you. I was in a goddamned hospital bed and trying to tell you when you jumped down my throat. I never, ever wanted it to turn out like this.”

By now I was ranting, and nothing was being held back. But I had to pause for breath sometime, and Edward never did know when it was best to be quiet.

“Please, Anita. Get it all out,” he said blandly, his face blank and his eyes darkly blue.

In that I moment I didn’t know what I’d rather do: kiss him or kill him. I settled for kissing him, my slightly inebriated self completely forgetting the fact that he was planning on divorcing me and taking my almost happy little life away. I buried my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer as my lips moved over his.

For a moment, I think, he tried not to. But even as I could feel him fighting with himself about kissing me, I felt him give in. His arms came up behind me with an almost crushing force and I whimpered as he firmly took control of the situation, the kiss, the violent passion that was fueled through me.

He backed me up against the counter, his hands rubbing over my waist and tugging the shirt out of my jeans, over my head to reveal the plain black bra I was wearing underneath. His fingers tugged at the straps, pushing them down so that he could press his lips to the curves of my breasts. I sighed and wiggled against him.

With surprising strength he lifted me up onto the counter and pushed my legs apart, deftly inserting himself between them and pulling me hard against him. I could feel the firm length of him pressing against me as his mouth worked over mine, and I bit back a sobbing laugh.

At least this was one thing we had always done well enough. We could even forget the fact that he hated me long enough to get our rocks off. The pain of the thought lanced through me and a bit in a sharp, gasping breath. It felt like someone had hit me in the gut, the sudden realization that no matter what I did for him right now, he didn’t know the truth of it, how I felt.

And he was going to leave me because of it. Despite it.

I could feel the hot sting of tears in my eyes as I pulled back, looking at him. “Edward,” I whispered. “I love you. Please don’t leave, I love you.”

His hands stopped on my body, his face went painfully empty. Then he leaned forward and gently kissed me, the terrible barrenness never once leaving his face, but his lips twisting into a terrible distortion of a smile.

He stepped back, wobbled a little, then steadied himself. “A relationship requires more than love, Anita. It requires trust. I can’t trust you anymore. I can’t believe you.”

He turned around and limped out, refusing to even take one step toward me to take up his cane. He despised me that much, that he would rather be vulnerable, rather be less than the best he could be. I pressed the feel of my hand to my eyes while I listened to the sound of the Hummer’s engine rolling over and revving.

When the sound of it faded I reached for the phone and dialed a number from memory. When it was answered I sighed and said, “If it’ll work, I want to do it today.”

I was clean and dressed again when he returned, the sun nearing its zenith and only reinforcing the pained way he moved without assistance. I still had his cane.

I’d already called and checked on the girls, they were fine. Then I told my parents that Edward and I were going to spend a couple of days away, figuring things out. They’d said it was a good idea, and I only needed to call to check on the kids.

I reminded them rather forcefully that Edward was to be afforded the same courtesy. My dad grumbled a little but Judith was a little indignant. She had assumed Edward would call, too.

So I was prepared when he came home and his key turned in the lock. I was standing there with his cane in my hand and two wolves at my back to take care of him when I finished. He didn’t even have the time to say anything, only to look surprised and confused when I greeted him.

“I’m sorry, Edward,” I said evenly.

Then my fist blurred out, the back of it taking Edward across the side of the head cleanly and dropping him like a bag of rocks. I still had the enhanced strength and senses. I’d never gone through with cutting the remaining mark off, needing it too much to be sure that my family was safe. That and I didn’t want any more scars to add to my collection.

Shallow, I know. But I couldn’t help it when I really thought about it. The mark helped me more than it hurt me. There was no harm in letting it remain.

I knelt down next to him and felt for a pulse, running my fingers over his scarred arm before closing my eyes and standing. The wolves moved up a step, waiting for the order. I gave it.

“Take him to the Circus. Take him to Asher. Make sure he’s secured.”


	9. Chapter 9

It was much later when Edward finally came around. Asher and I had been arguing back and forth for the better part of two hours while we waited and for once he was losing. I would not budge on my stance and I was still stone faced when Edward’s blue eyes blinked open. His body went from relaxed to tense and ready to jump in less than a heartbeat, and his face went closed when he realized he was tied.

No, not tied. Chained.

“Anita?” he said quietly in his most dangerous tone.

I didn’t say anything; I only turned to Asher and gave him the nod to go ahead. He looked at me and I could see the doubt in his eyes. The course of action that I’d set us on had originally required Edward’s cooperation. And that was something he’d never give me again.

But I didn’t have to have it. I didn’t even need it. But I did have to make sure he was safe again.

“Are you sure about this, Anita?” Asher asked me. “He’ll hate you if I do it.”

“Just do it. He already hates me.”

He struggled when Asher moved close, fangs bared a little as his mouth slipped open. “Forgive me, _mon ami_,” he murmured before closing his eyes and passing the first mark over Edward.

The second followed quickly, but the third was slower in coming as Asher looked to where Elmer stood in the corner of the room. Elmer nodded to him as I watched, and Asher bent down and let his fangs slip into Edward’s wrist. It wasn’t the best place to bite, not even the least painful. But it did keep Edward from feeling completely the victim.

He did try to struggle, but we’d made sure that he couldn’t move more than an inch. His eyes were icy blue fire as he stared at me while Asher took him to the third mark, but no further. He couldn’t take him any further, not as things stood. He would lose Elmer if he did, and that was something he wouldn’t risk for anything.

That was the other reason why Edward was trussed up like a Christmas goose. So that he couldn’t accidentally enforce the fourth mark. We wouldn’t need to keep him tied because of that once Lillian was done. Asher wouldn’t be anywhere close enough to risk the fourth mark after this.

It was done quickly, and Asher bowed his head when he was finished before standing. He closed his eyes, refused to look at Edward, then turned and walked past Anita. Elmer watched for a moment and then followed, pausing to whisper, “It is done, be careful of him,” before following Asher out.

And I was left with Edward staring at me. His eyes were hotly furious and bright. I realized that he was very close to tears, but pushed that thought away. He wouldn’t break down, not in front of me. Not once he got a grip on the situation. But he would be doubly dangerous until he did.

I didn’t say anything to him; he didn’t offer to say anything to me. And Dr. Lillian was there too fast for it to make a difference. She was brisk, moving around the bed and setting up her equipment, not pausing for a moment but simply being quickly efficient.

His eyes were wide as he followed her, going even further open as she pulled a syringe and phial of clear liquid from her pocket. She was carefully measuring it when he finally spoke.

“What is that?” he asked her. His voice was even, almost empty. But I could hear the fear. And if I could, then she could, too.

She patted one of his twisted legs. “It’s just a general. We need you to be perfectly still while I run the IV, and this is the best way to do it.”

He didn’t even have time to react before she’d shoved it quickly and carefully into the flesh of his arm. I closed my eyes, wincing. I’d been on the receiving end often enough. And he didn’t even know what we were doing. What I hoped would happen. What _would_ happen, because I wasn’t going to break the last modicum of trust he’d ever held in me just to be a bitch and hand him over to the monsters.

No, I was handing him over to my friends. My friends, who know how much I loved him and understood, even if they didn’t agree with the secrecy.

His eyes found mine one last time before rolling up in his head and sliding closed.

I couldn’t sit around while Lillian worked. I’d stayed long enough to watch her run the IV, and then to call her assistant and make the first cut. Then I’d fled until she was done and Edward was stitched together. Until he was safe and nearly whole again, or as whole as modern medicine could make him.

True, he would have new scars running down the fronts of his legs. But with the marks on him, they’d heal to next to nothing. If he didn’t know they were there, the chances of him finding them would be terribly slim. Especially considering the extensive scars he already had.

Lillian had done what she could with his hands, too. Where he’d been cut and tortured. The scar tissue had built up under the skin and around the joints. It had to have hurt him, but he was never one to complain. She’d gone carefully along the existing scars and removed the tissue that caused the pain, hampered the movement.

When he healed he would be in much better condition than before.

But it was his legs that were her concern, I realized as she spoke to me. He was still asleep as she ran her fingers over the new stitches and pointed to potential problems that I would have to watch for. I was his nurse now. I was taking care of him once again, for what would be the last time.

“I inserted a drain at both knees. There will be swelling in the next twelve hours because of the rapid healing.” Her fingers pointed to the healing incisions on his thighs. “You can see where it’s already started. The stitches will be about by tomorrow afternoon, the incisions completely healed by tomorrow night if he continues at this pace.”

“You’ll want to make sure that he eats high calorie foods. The more protein and carbs the better, and if he refuses to eat feel free to threaten him with force feeding. I’ll come do it if needed.” She adjusted one leg slightly, carefully eyeing it. “The bones should already be set. There shouldn’t be anything that he can do to move them if they’ve set properly.”

“And if they haven’t? How do I know he’s messed it up?” I asked, sheer willpower keeping me from touching him, reassuring myself that he was sound and whole again.

“You’ll know, Anita. It’ll be rather obvious,” Lillian told me before grabbing up the last of the equipment left behind, her bag. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning. Keep him settled until then.”

I’d only just closed the door and turned around when I realized that Edward wasn’t asleep, as we had thought. He was watching me with careful eyes as his fingers clenched in the bed sheets. I blinked, then swallowed. Then I went to the chair that was next to his bed and sat down, waiting for the questions and accusations I knew would be coming.

I could see it in his eyes, every last thing that he wanted to say. All the pain he wanted to put me through. But in the end, all he said was, “I can’t feel my legs.”

I gave him a weak smile. “That’s a good thing. Trust me.”

His face darkened and I bit back a wince from my choice of words. Not what I needed to bring up given his adamant feelings on trusting me. Especially when I’d pretty much just kidnapped him on top of everything else. And let’s not forget I had him sliced and diced. Even if it was for a good cause.

“Trust you? You hit me. Drugged me. Operated on me,” he said in an impassive tone. “Without my permission or knowledge.”

“It’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission,” I murmured softly, looking down.

“I’m not going to forgive you.”

My eyes flashed up, hot and shining and angry. “I wasn’t going to ask.”

“You had me marked!” he yelled and forced himself to sitting. “You fucking had me marked!”

He ripped the bandage that was around his wrist off. I looked at the mostly healed bite mark, knowing it would never fade completely. Even after I broke the marks on him it would remain. Just another reminder of how I hurt him. Took advantage of him.

I wasn’t any better than Van Cleef, when it came down to it.

“It had to be done.” My voice was faint and tired to my ears.

He glared. Threw the bandage at my feet. “I’m not some fucking whore that you can play out as you want, Anita.”

“I know that.”

“Do you really?” He was watching me, eyes carefully blank.

“It had to be done,” I repeated. “It was the only way you would heal well.”

“So you did this out of altruism?” he said with scorn. He tugged the blanket back and I saw his eyes widen when he saw the neat rows of black stitches. Then he looked at his hands, his fingers, carefully spreading them as he inspected the work.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he murmured, turning his hands over.

“It will.” He didn’t say anything as he ran his hands carefully down his now straight legs. “We tried to stitch it to minimize the scarring. The worst of it was actually re-breaking the bones and making them realign without all of the healed tissue that had built up.”

I knew. I had watched bits and pieces of it. Then I had walked out because the thought that I was looking at the inside of Edward’s legs made me sick. And it made me feel guilty, because I did know that I was doing this without his permission. I did know that he would never let me.

And I did it anyway.

I was feeling sick again and stood up, pushing the chair back. My stomach was roiling when I made it to the door, and I really thought that I might be sick. But I was pushing the feeling down as much as I could. I just needed to sleep, to rest. Then I would go out and hunt and not think of what I’d forced on Edward.

The door was open when I heard his voice say, “Anita.” He said my name, and it wasn’t dripping with hate. I didn’t know which was worse. That he cared enough to hate me, or that now he didn’t care enough to feel anything.

I turned to him.

“You fixed me?” His voice, face, eyes were neutral and empty.

I bit back the pain that shot through my heart. “I tried.” Then I fled.


	10. Chapter 10

I ended up begging Cherry to take care of him until Lillian came back to have the stitches removed the next day. I ended up sleeping till well after moonrise and then peeking in on Edward before leaving for the hunt. He was asleep. That I hadn’t expected; I thought he’d still be too agitated to sleep.

But he was, and I didn’t dare walk in and check on him closer. I didn’t want to wake him. He looked more peaceful than I had seen him since before the revenant.

Besides, he’d ask me why I was dressed the way I was, and I didn’t feel like explaining that I was playing bait tonight. It was bad enough that I was in heels and a skirt and walking around at all hours. It was worse because Zerbrowski was my back up and kept saying the most horribly perverted things into my earpiece.

The plan was for the revenant to attack me and for Zerbrowski to take him out. Or, him failing, for me to be the last line of defense until the rest of squad got there. But even though there were maybe a dozen other people out, he didn’t show.

When we packed it in just after dawn there had been no attacks, no sightings, no nothing. And my feet were killing me. Dolph gave me a lift back to the Circus, not asking any questions about Edward other than how he was. I slid past the question with a noncommittal grunt.

It wasn’t like I could tell Dolph what we’d done. What I’d done. He’d probably pack me off to jail. Or at least pull his father of the year act on me again. And I could so live without that.

The Circus was fairly quiet, with the vampires just having gone down for the day and the rest of the population mostly still asleep. The odd few that were up were guards and used to working quietly in the first hours of the day. I didn’t really say anything to them, but did try a few smiles and nods. They seemed pleased that I’d acknowledged them and I let myself into the lower levels of the Circus with a real smile.

He was still asleep when I checked on him. Or he’d woke up and gone back to sleep before I got back. It didn’t really matter to me as I sat down next to the bed. I felt much better for the shower and comfy pajamas I’d dug up to wear. Fuzzy slippers would have been great, but I didn’t have any so I was stuck with socks.

I watched him for a while, just thinking about what I’d done, what I was planning. Hoping that someday he’d be able to forgive me, or at least understand why I’d done any of it. The worst had happened so long ago I barely remembered what had started it. The anger, the pain, the rage I’d felt when I’d mistakenly thought that Edward had killed Jean-Claude.

The guilt when I realized far too late that he’d only killed Olaf. Only. Had only made us so much safer. Then sacrificed himself for us when Van Cleef came.

“Anita.”

His voice jerked me out of my thoughts and I realized that I’d been twisting my wedding rings around my finger. It was a habit that I’d developed sometime after Edward had died, something I did when I was thinking too hard. Like I had been moments before.

I looked at him, guilt riding my face. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll go if you want.”

He didn’t say anything, and for a minute I thought that he’d tell me to take the rings off, since we were getting divorced. But he didn’t say anything, and I finally realized that his eyes were still closed.

“You’re still asleep, aren’t you?” I whispered as my fingers lightly grazed his cheek.

He was as handsome as ever. Van Cleef hadn’t quite had the courage to go after his face. But he came damned close. I pressed my lips softly to his and settled back in the chair. He was still asleep. I could watch him for just a little longer.

It was a hand on my leg that woke me up. A strong, firm, warm hand. Edward’s hand, I realized as I opened my eyes and blinked drowsily. I yawned, rubbed the sleep from my face, and realized my cheeks were wet and my eyes ached.

“You were crying,” he offered by way of explanation as he drew his hand back.

I didn’t say anything, just watched him warily. Then I looked around the room and realized that we weren’t alone. I believe I have been more embarrassed. I hope that I have. But at that precise moment, I had never blushed harder than I could ever remember doing.

Lillian, Cherry, Asher and Elmer were all there, watching us. Cherry was smiling at me, the other three just watching and not saying a word. Lillian was actually frowning. She bustled over to the bed laying her bag down and taking Edward’s hand up in her iron grip.

“You’ve healed quickly,” she said as she held the handout under my nose, waiting for me to inspect it.

I made a noise and backed up, pushing the chair against the wall and standing to go over to Cherry and Asher. In the quick glimpse I’d seen of Edward’s hand, the skin had begun to grow over the stitches. A sure sign that he was fairly well healed.

Lillian busied herself with snipping and pulling them out, and for once Edward wasn’t fighting or complaining. Or even threatening. He was, instead, watching with fascination. When she would finish with a finger he’d flex it a little, then hold the hand back out for her to continue.

When she had finished with his left hand he moved it into a fist, a loose one, but still a fist. A smile crossed his face and my heart ached with it. He was happy with the results. So far. Lillian didn’t give him any more time to inspect the finished. She simply grabbed his right hand and started on it.

It took her almost a half hour to get all of the hundreds of tiny black stitches. So many, but the scars were very fine and almost invisible. That was a relief. I’d been afraid that the new scars would anger him. I hadn’t truly appreciated how well someone healed when they had the third mark.

Stupid, really. I’ve healed with minimal scars too many times, usually without any at all. But some of that was due to my own highly magical nature. At least, according to Marianne it was.

Edward was a magical null. He had none. No personal magic, no special ability that could even be classified as psionics. But that was fine, because he was inserted into the dual power between Elmer and Asher. Both had a little power to spare and let him heal so well.

It was a little disappointing to see that his legs hadn’t progressed so much. But Lillian smiled and said they were coming along nicely. She reapplied the bandages and told him he had another day or two left, then he would be as good as new. Or damned close.

Then she dragged me out of the room and frowned. “Anita, it’s not a miracle. It doesn’t just happen.”

“I know,” I said. “I just thought…”

“Tomorrow. The stitches will come out tomorrow, and you will help him stay still that one last day. It is imperative that the bones heal properly and completely.”

“Yes, master,” I muttered.

She smiled. “That’s better. Now get in there and take care of your husband,” she said with a wink.

That one was a hard one to chew over, but I ignored it, and her, when she dragged Cherry out to review on the nursing notes. Obviously Lillian had managed to find out that I chickened out the night before. That, or she decided that Cherry was an ideal nurse. Which she was.

Elmer just left. He wasn’t happy with any of it, but he wouldn’t tell me why. I assumed it was because I’d had all of this done without Edward’s consent. But it wasn’t going to be a problem anymore, not having his permission. Edward was examining his hands, flexing them and studying the full range of motion like a kid on Christmas morning.

Asher pulled me aside before he followed, smiling. “I am glad to see that your wish is being granted.”

I smiled. “Yeah.”

“And have you explained to him what must be done to break the marks?” he asked quietly, smile suddenly dimming into all seriousness.

I shook my head. “He won’t have a problem with it, if it were just him. But it’s me, so I can’t tell him.” I stopped. “Actually, I don’t think he’d care anymore.”

Asher smiled and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “It will all work out, I am sure. You should not say that he no longer cares.”

“If you say so,” I replied as I pressed my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes. It was too painful thinking of how Edward had done that to me so often. His own little way of letting me know he cared.

I felt him go, felt Edward’s eyes light on me. It was a heavy weight I didn’t want to face. But I had to eventually. And now was as good as ever. I opened my eyes and sat down at the foot of his bed. He was watching me, his hands and fingers flexing every few moments against the pillow in his lap.

“How do you feel?” I asked him, hoping that he wouldn’t bite my head off.

He shrugged. “My legs aren’t as sore as they were last night. My hands are fine.” I winced at the reminder that I had left him last night, and gone hunting to run away. “How are you?” he asked after a moment.

It was my turn to shrug.

“You were crying, Anita,” he said softly. “Was it that bad a dream?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “I don’t remember it.”

“Oh.” He paused, watched me. “You said my name.”

“I don’t remember it,” I said again, flatly. I didn’t want to remember it if I said his name. No doubt it was something revolving around him leaving me. Again. And if I remembered it I couldn’t lie to him. He’d know. And I hated lying to him. I tried never to.

After all, look what happened when I did?

He opened his mouth to say something to me, but the door flew in and cracked against the stone of the wall. It was Jason. His eyes were wide and frantic. “There’s been a sighting, Anita. An attack.”

“Oh God,” I whispered. “How bad?”


	11. Chapter 11

There was half a dozen dead, twice as many in the hospital in varying stages of critical condition. Dolph had sent a cruiser to pick me up and take me to where the attack had happened. They were counting on me to use my magic and fine the creature. There were even chickens, and a goat, if I needed a sacrifice.

But I couldn’t.

Try as I might, I couldn’t get a magical bead on the son of a bitch. My necromancy should have picked him up if he was in range, which meant that he was beyond the limit of my power. Even with the boost from the goat, I couldn’t pick him up.

It was well after midnight when we finally admitted defeat for the moment, but Dolph had uniforms stationed at every other corner looking for him. There were even cruisers with spotlights in the residential areas, and both of the SLPD helicopters flashing theirs over the industrial district. At the very least, if no one found him tonight, there was only a slim chance he’d try another attack.

We hoped. Because it was a revenant, and they were far too unpredictable for words.

By the time I was allowed to go, released because my magical knowledge and expertise were getting us nowhere, it was after four. Dawn was a few hours away, and we had planned until we were ready to fall over from exhaustion. But forewarned was forearmed, and we had to have something in place the next night.

I was sure the revenant was going to make an appearance. There was too much magical pressure in the air to say otherwise. He was desperate for food, sustenance. He hadn’t gotten enough from the people he’d attacked because someone had hit him with a UV light.

A revenant he may be, but he’d been up for long enough to develop some form of survival instinct. And he was a vampire. UV was condensed sunlight. It _hurt_ him, and he ran.

Yet another uniformed cop took me back to the Circus. He looked very young and innocent in the glow from the dashboard lights. He didn’t look like he belonged to his uniform, to his sidearm, to his job. He looked like he should have been out somewhere planting things, watching children grow.

It only made me feel old. Older than I was, at least, to have seen everything, done everything that I had. It made me want to run away, hide. Or give up. Everything was going to hell and I was being dragged along behind it. It had been years since anything like this happened. Years since I’d been dragged into the middle of a preternatural situation where there were dead bodies I could have prevented.

If it’d just been a little quicker, a little better at the morgue… But I’d been slow, stupid. I’d been thinking of getting it over with so I could go home to Edward, the girls. My family. And finally confess everything to him, beg forgiveness, and maybe get everything worked out.

I moved stiffly when I got out at the Circus, nodded to the officer, went down into the depths of the Circus to escape the coming dawn and the accusations I knew would be plastered across the newspapers. They would blame the Executioner for not catching the monster, for not saving those people. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t the only person working on the problem, the only person hunting for the creature.

I sighed and sank onto the couch in the great room Asher had decorated so warmly. It was all gold and brown and deep, deep reds that made me think of autumn in the country with the leaves changing hundreds of warm colors as the air grew crisp. It made me think of home, and how cold and empty it would be when everything was finished.

With I sigh I reached out and picked up the phone, dialing Larry’s number from memory. He answered on the second ring with a disturbingly cheerful, “Good morning.”

“Since when are you a morning person?” I asked.

I could almost see the blush that I knew was creeping up his neck. “It’s early. Have you been to sleep?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“I need you to take Eve and report to SLPD. Have her try and track the revenant,” I instructed.

“Sure thing, boss lady,” he shot back jauntily. “Do you think she can do it?”

I sighed again. “Probably not, because I couldn’t. But you can put her in a chopper and have her focus from there. Maybe she can nail him that way.” I shuddered. “You know I hate flying.”

“Will do. Dolph’ll be gone, right?” he asked. I could hear the rustle of cloth in the background as he pulled his clothes together and began dressing.

“I don’t know who he’s assigned to take day shift. Give the station a call and find out. I’ll call Eve and let her know to be dressed and waiting for you.”

“Ah, about that,” he said in a miserable one. “You don’t have to call her.”

One of my eyebrows shot up. “Really?” Perky good morning, lack of general irritableness, rustle of bedclothes… Oh.

There was a rustle. “Morning, Anita,” came Eve’s slightly husky voice. “You have really bad timing, you know that?”

“Oh, God. Eve, I didn’t need that mental picture.” Now I would never be able to look at either of them without seeing a quick flash of a porn. With them starring.

I heard Larry in the background saying, “Mission, Evie. Go get dressed and give Anita back to me.”

I shook my head. “Don’t say anything, Larry. The damage to my mind has already been wreaked. I’ll talk to you later.”

I hung up without a second thought, just trying to wipe the picture of Eve and Larry having sex from my mind. It was very, very hard. It wasn’t that I was interested in either of them, but Eve was an unusual woman. She was always surprising even me, every time I turned around.

If she’d been just a little more shy, a little more distant, she would have reminded me of me. But she was far too female and outgoing to ever put that into my head. She was a woman who wore skirts and heels just because she could, who would flaunt her beauty just to see a man’s, Larry’s, eyes follow her whenever she moved.

Dawn was very near. I could feel it despite Jean-Claude’s absence from the link. It was heavy in my mind and only made me that much more tired. But where to go, I had no idea. When Asher had remodeled the lower levels, he’d made sure that there were bedrooms. Four of them, designed for when there were human or lycanthrope guests, or for when I or the girls needed to stay. And of course, Asher had his room. But it was more of a suite, because he shared it with Elmer.

I knew Edward had one of the four, and that Jason was in another. It was his permanent residence when he wasn’t elsewhere. I was hoping the other two were free, but when I went to check they were locked, and one of them warded. The pack’s vargamor was obviously in residence.

I sighed and cracked Jason’s door a bit, hoping that he wasn’t there and had decided to play somewhere else, but he was sleeping. Nude, of course, and I just hushed the door back closed rapidly blinking and wondering if my night would end before I saw someone else naked.

Obviously it wasn’t.

Because when I went to check on Edward and steal a blanket to sleep on the couch in the great room, he was walking carefully from the bathroom to the bed, naked as the day he was born and looking very good for someone who’d had major reconstructive surgery less than 48 hours before. All I could do was turn red and stand there with my mouth hanging open.

“I was just checking on you,” I mumbled as I averted my eyes. Mostly. “Sorry.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched me with those cold blue eyes as he carefully sat back down in the bed. I was able to look up again when he’d pulled the sheet over his legs and lower body, but I wasn’t able to avoid the heated blush that wouldn’t leave.

“You’re not supposed to be out of bed,” I said, trying to ignore the way my body had reacted to the sight of his.

He shrugged. “Lillian came by an hour ago to check the stitches. She pulled them, said I could move around carefully.” He stopped and stared at me. “It doesn’t hurt.”

The soft way he said it made my eyes get hot. He’d been in so much pain for so long. It must be so different now for him, I thought. It must have been so hard for him, and then to come from that to this, and to be slapped in the face with Anna.

It made me sick to my stomach, just thinking about it, and I closed my eyes. “I was just going to see if I could borrow a blanket. I’m sorry I bothered you,” I said as I pushed back against the door to leave.

“Anita,” he said, his voice hitting me like a ton of bricks. “You can have the blanket.”

I opened my eyes and gave him a small smile. “Thanks,” I whispered and went to retrieve it.

The blanket was thick and would go a long way to making my night on the couch more pleasant. Or would that be morning? I didn’t bother to split hairs as I began bunching the blanket up, doing my best not to even glance at Edward where he laid. I thought I was doing a pretty god job of it until his hand covered mine.

“What do you need it for? Did someone get hurt?” His eyes and voice were serious, business. Like he was really worried.

I shook my head. “No, it’s for me.” He raised an eyebrow, questioning. “I’m sleeping on the couch. There’s no free bed.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Quiet, not quick, but slowly and though about. “You don’t have to sleep on a couch. Sleep here.”

I shook my head. “It isn’t a good idea. It’s your bed.”

“You’re my wife,” he said plainly. “What’s mine is yours and yours is mine.”

“At least until the divorce,” I said bitterly.

He shrugged. “But until then,” was all he said.

He didn’t move as I lay down on top of the sheet and pulled the blanket over both of us. I refused to get under it knowing that he was sleeping nude. But I couldn’t make him put anything on because it might aggravate his stitches. Which he didn’t have any more, I remembered. But it was already too late, because he had the light out and settling back into his pillow.

I felt him shift and then heard his voice disturbingly close to my ear. “You don’t have to sleep on the edge. There’s enough room for both of us,” he whispered, his hand on my arm.

“Quit being nice to me,” I muttered, blinking hard and fast. I didn’t need anyone being nice to me, it would make me cry.

Between everything that had happened today, I didn’t need it. Didn’t want it, either. As long as I could ignore it I wouldn’t have to remind myself that it was all my fault. That Edward hated me because I’d lied to him. That more than a dozen people were dead or dying because I’d failed to kill the revenant in the first place.

It never occurred to me that I’d already been a victim of it. That I’d nearly died because of it. Maybe if it had, I wouldn’t have started crying, tears tracing hot trails down my cheeks and body wracking as I tried to hold my sobs in. Maybe I could have stayed in control and not needed anyone just then, when all I had was Edward.

Because moments after I started I felt his arms go carefully around him and pull me to him, cradling me against his thin, wiry body. It only made me cry harder, whimpering horrible defeated things like, “I’m sorry,” and, “It’s my fault.” Admitting it to him, when all I wanted was for him to forgive me without a thought.

But he held me close, stroked my hair, and comforted me until I was cried out, and fell asleep.


	12. Chapter 12

He let me sleep myself out. I don’t know how he managed it, but he kept everyone else from waking me up and let me sleep till I was ready to wake up. Thirteen hours, I slept. The sleep of the dead, I’d call it. I’d seen Becca do the very same thing on the weekends, and still be groggy when she finally got dragged out of bed.

I’d never imagined I’d do it. Be able to do it.

But Edward let me, knowing what my body needed before I did. Or maybe he was just willing to acknowledge the exhaustion in me instead of ignoring it like it did. I hadn’t paid attention to it for years, not since Anna was a baby. It just was. But now it wasn’t, because I’d _slept_.

It was very strange waking up in that big bed. Strange because I wasn’t waking up by myself. I was waking up to a warm body holding me, my head tucked under his chin and my arms wrapped around his waist. He was asleep, too, I realized as I pulled back to stretch. Asleep and looking better than he had since he’d come back.

Edward’s face was beginning to fill back out, his body too. Good food and rest were agreeing with him. The circles under his eyes weren’t so dark anymore, and I smiled to see his hands curled into balls where he had them tucked next to his body. He hadn’t been able to do that before. And he could now.

I slipped out of the bed and grabbed up a small bag at the foot of the bed. It was familiar. The emergency bag I kept packed at all times and stuffed into the back of the Jeep. Someone, Jason probably, had gone and fetched it and left it where I would find it. I was grateful, and headed to the bathroom to clean myself up.

The water was as hot as I could want it, steaming up the air in next to no time, and I scrubbed myself thoroughly. When I got out I towel dried my hair as well as I could, then wound it into a bun at the back of my head. Clothes followed. An old pair of blue jeans that had been worn soft, a white tank top and a light purple button-up to hide the shoulder holster.

I tugged my boots back on before grabbing up my clothes and shoving them into the bag. Then I threaded my arms through the holster and put the Browning where it belonged before heading back out to face Edward and the rest of the world.

The room was empty when I stepped back in, letting the steam follow me through the open door. Lillian was inspecting Edward’s legs and Cherry, Asher and Elmer were looking on. Lillian was smiling and talking to Edward quietly, so I bypassed that and went straight to Asher.

“What time is it?” I’d taken the clock out of Edward’s temporary room so that he couldn’t fret over it. But now I was wondering how much of a head start the revenant would have on me.

“It is a quarter after seven, _cherie_,” he told me. I smiled at him, pressed a kiss to his scarred cheek.

“Someone really should have woke me,” I said before hurrying through the door.

Two phone calls later I had Dolph coming to pick me up while I was briefed over the phone by Larry. He was at the hospital with the victims and their families. Three had died since I’d left them that morning, and he was explaining to them, privately and in great detail what their options were now that their loved ones had been killed by a revenant.

Nothing about the person rising, the odds of it happening weren’t too great. But the support groups, the psychiatrists, the people who could help them cope and deal. It wasn’t easy and there were a lot of people asking for time before he finished. And he was still on the first family.

I’d caught him on one of the breaks, while the family was crying and trying to comfort each other. He was telling me that Eve was still in the air following the revenant as it moved all over the city. They believed it was using the sewers to travel, and couldn’t get an exact location on it because it was after dark and there were too many other vampires out to narrow the target’s location down.

But that was okay, I was on now and I’d find it tonight, if it killed me I’d find it.

I was just hanging up with him when Lillian came out followed closely by Elmer. Asher and Cherry were obviously staying to talk to Edward. I expected that it would be a nice change from lying there all day, even if he wasn’t chained anymore. Still didn’t know who’d let him loose, but I’d have to find out and thank them.

Lillian was smiling, which made me happy. It meant things were going well. “You’ll be able to do your ritual tomorrow,” she said without preamble.

I smiled wider. “That’s great. He’ll be a hundred percent tomorrow afternoon?”

She nodded. “You pulled it off, Anita,” she said. “I didn’t think that it would work, especially on Death. But you made it work.”

I shrugged, trying not to feel uncomfortable. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything except deck him.”

Lillian raised an eyebrow. “If you say so. I’ve got to get back, other patients, you know.”

I watched her leave, bemused, before tossing a smile over to Elmer. “You doing okay, Elmer?”

He nodded. “I just want to get this over with. The longer he is joined into link with us, the harder it will be to loose him from it.”

My brow furrowed as I frowned. “It’s not going to hurt him tomorrow when I break the marks on him, is it?” I asked, hesitant to even contemplate that I might not be able to free Edward.

“He’ll be fine,” Elmer murmured. “It’s Asher I worry about.”

The way he said it made my eyes go round. In all the years that Asher and Elmer had been together, never once had I seen anything between them to indicate more than a professional relationship. No one else had either, not even the leopards or wolves. It was too ambiguous, because their scent was always on each other because of feedings.

This was the first time I’d seen it, the dynamic of a more intimate relationship, between them. Elmer was worried about Asher. He was worried about his lover, his love. I could see it in his face, in his eyes. It was the same expression I wore often now, when I thought about Edward and what had happened to him in the time we’d spent apart.

I laid a hand gently on his shoulder. “Asher’ll be okay. He said so himself.”

Elmer sighed. “I know what he said. I just worry,” he whispered.

How Asher knew, I couldn’t guess, unless Elmer had started letting Asher into his mind. It hadn’t seemed like he would at first, but things can change, I guess. But he was there, suddenly appearing as if out of thin air. I knew it to be a trick, just that he had clouded our minds without us knowing, and probably without even realizing it, relying on some of the same techniques Jean-Claude himself had used to hold the city.

His arms were around Elmer and Elmer was hugging him back, face buried in Asher’s pale throat. Asher’s hands came up to hold him tightly, one stroking Elmer’s hair. I could hear the faint whispers that meant Asher was trying to reassure Elmer. For myself, I wasn’t so sure.

If Elmer was doubting, maybe the ritual was too dangerous to use. But adding Edward into their pairing wouldn’t even create a workable triumvirate. He wasn’t a magic user. He couldn’t even begin to try. He was a nothing in the world of metaphysics and magic.

So I climbed the stairs to wait for my ride while thinking over the possibilities. And lack thereof.

Dawn, again, and I wasn’t even close to being in bed. Once I got back to the Circus I would still have to take a shower and wash off the blood and grime that covered me. And then I’d still have to call and check on the girls. And even then I couldn’t go to bed. I still had to prepare for the ritual that would release Edward.

It wasn’t only me that had to be prepared. I had to prepare the sacrifice too. There were incantations and herbs and other not very interesting magical things that would ‘purify’ the sacrifice enough that it would be accepted. Of course, it wasn’t true purity I was after. It was more that I needed proof that the sacrifice wasn’t worth allowing to live.

Shouldn’t be too hard, I figured.

So when Zerbrowski dropped me off (dirty suggestions left and right) I headed straight for Edward’s room and his bathroom. It was too early to expect anyone else to be up, and even if Edward wasn’t, I could honestly care less about him accidentally walking in on me naked. Not like he hadn’t seen it before. He’d seen everything I had, and then some.

Not that I was really expecting him to be awake. So color me surprised when he was sitting up, dressed in pajamas, and reading a book. Waiting for me.

He moved faster than I’d expected when I walked in, up and at my side almost as quickly as he used to move. His hands were on my arms in the blood and I could see him peering at it, looking for whatever wound was bad enough that I was head to toe in it.

“Where were you hurt?” he asked. “Why didn’t they take you to the hospital?”

I pushed him back carefully, still overly aware of the scars that traced his body, the new ones I’d had put there. “I’m fine, Edward. It’s not mine,” I said with a smile.

I was two steps past him when I added the low, “Not all of it, at least,” so that I wouldn’t be lying to him again. I’d been far too aware of even the little white lies people tell to let it go completely.

“Anita.”

His voice was like ice down my spine. I turned.

“Show me yours,” he said, the simple command in it making me want to balk. But I knew we’d be fighting about it till the next day if I didn’t just show him. And it wasn’t that bad. Really, it wasn’t. It was mostly bruising. But what wasn’t was… Well, it looked bad.

I slipped the over-shirt off so that I was standing there in the jeans and tank top and turned to let him see my left side. There were ragged gashes in the material, and bloody torn flesh showing through. Pieces of ground, dirt, leaves, twigs, were stuck to it, and there were even pebbles.

It looked like I’d been dragged along the ground, which was true enough. Dragged, kicked and thrown. All in one night. Go me.

His fingers were very gentle as he lifted up the shirt and saw the worst of it. He let out a hissing breath. “Anita,” he said softly. “Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?”

I shook my head. “It wouldn’t help any. I’ll heal. Not as fast as you have,” I said with a smile, “but fast enough.”

I thought we were through with it then. I don’t know how he knew, because we certainly didn’t share a bond like Asher and Elmer did. But he knew. The button up was hanging off my wrist, casual, too casual I guess. His hands closed over my forearm and he slid the shirt all the way off.

I’d been bitten.

There were jagged edged fang marks where the revenant had bitten into me and dragged me like an animal. I’d done most of the tearing when I struggled and finally freed myself. But I’d still been bitten. Even if there was no danger in being the revenant’s creature, I’d still been bitten. I could see it in his eyes, it was bad enough.

“A-ni-ta,” he said, separating each syllable. “God,” he whispered.

“It’s not bad,” I whispered, tugging my arm from his hands. “It’s not bad.”

“It’s all right,” I said in a stronger voice. “I’ll be okay.”

He stared at me as I picked my shirt back up and wound it around my wrist. He was still staring after me when I closed the bathroom door behind me and collapsed against it.


	13. Chapter 13

He was waiting for me when I finished in the shower. I couldn’t put the same clothes I’d been wearing before back on, so I was wrapped in an oversized towel that covered me to past my knees. I’d wound it tightly so that it would press against the wound on my side and hopefully keep it from seeping too much. There was a smaller hand towel around my wrist. It was deeper and still bleeding, but nothing that would put me in any danger.

If I’d been going to bleed out from it, I would have long before I’d gotten back to the Circus. But it made no difference because it wasn’t going to happen.

He was surrounded with gauze and bandages and other medical type things that I didn’t want to have anything to do with. They always made me think of the hospital, and I hated them. Besides, I was healing, wasn’t I? I took a quick peek at my wrist to make sure. Yeah. I was healing. Just not as fast as Edward. After all, I was only a surviving third of my triumvirate. And Edward was plenty capable with all three points of his.

“You don’t need to do this, Edward,” I said as he dragged me down to sit next to him.

“Yes, I do. I’m not going to let you run around with open wounds. It’s just asking for trouble.”

His hands flew over my wrist as he neatly taped it together and salved it and wrapped it with clean, white gauze. I had to admit defeat. It hadn’t bled nearly as much once he’d taped it up and brought the edges together. At this rate, it probably wouldn’t scar much, either.

“Okay, you were right,” I muttered disgustedly.

“I usually am,” he replied mildly. “Let me see your side.”

I flushed pink. It was one thing to say it objectively. It was another to let him see everything I had again. I wasn’t sure I could do it, but he didn’t leave me much of a choice as he undid the knot that held the towel closed at my breast and tugged it back. It fell revealing my breasts, and the arm on my uninjured side shot up to cover my chest.

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. Only unbuttoned the top of his pajamas and handed it to me, making no comment as I shrugged it on. Then he lifted the one side up and examined the wound. I lay back so that he could see it easier, trying not to think of it being Edward’s fingers that were running lightly along my side.

It wasn’t a good thing to think of, especially when he was only doing it to patch me up. But they paused at my hip and slid forward to my stomach while I was still trying to convince myself that there wasn’t anything going on.

“I thought you didn’t scar with the marks?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked as I sat up.

His hands were low on my belly tracing the stretch marks from when I’d been pregnant with Anna. To that, I wasn’t sure what to say. So I didn’t say anything, just laid back and ignored the way he touched me until he moved back up to my side and bandaged it up. He was efficient, I had to admit, and knew what he was doing. When I sat up and moved around, the tape didn’t pull at me and the bandage didn’t move.

“Thank you,” I said softly when it was done. I pulled the towel tight around my waist so that it wouldn’t slip and tried to smile at him. “I have to go get things ready for this afternoon.” I paused, thinking for a moment. Then I offered a white flag. “Would you call and check on the girls, please?”

The smile he gave me went to his eyes. It was a relief, more than a relief, to know that he could still smile. And at me, too. Maybe we could be friends, when this was all over. Or at least not be enemies.

The afternoon came quickly. Almost too quickly. But I finished the purification ceremonies before the actual ritual was scheduled to be, and still had adequate time to prepare. There were a few specifics to it, the rest was left to chance or choice. Whichever you chose to believe in. but the constants mostly included me and the sacrifice.

I had already followed through with purification of the sacrifice and offering it for inspection to the north wind, the wind of justice. It had met with approval and the sore throat I had after the lengthy incantation and chant was worth it to know that the sacrifice was acceptable for attempting the ritual. Success was guaranteed, but it was more likely.

I’d had to perform my own purification, which included meditation on the desired result, and the person I was petitioning on behalf of, Edward. It required minor blood spilling on my part to establish that my intentions were honest and that I wasn’t going to try to harness power that wasn’t mine.

I think the fact that I had so much power went a long way to making that one okay, and the cut I’d dealt myself on my arm was already healed into a shiny white scar. It was the sign that my petition was acceptable and that I was going to be permitted to carry through with the request. It gave me hope that whoever was listening was listening well, and would be just and honest.

I met Edward and Asher in the annexed room that held the one-time graveyard. All of the bodies that had been buried there, Phillip included, had been moved four years earlier and given proper burials and graves. It was now cleansed ground that could almost be called holy, sacred. But it had never been blessed by an actual priest of the church, only by repeated use of white magic by the pack’s vargamor, and the grayer magic that was my necromancy.

Elmer would be along shortly with the sacrifice, but I only needed Edward and Asher for the drawing of the circle, it was their blood I’d need to activate it. Then Elmer would bring the sacrifice and it would be placed at the center of the circle with the four of us at each of the directional points to call the corners like Marianne had taught me, and I had taught them.

Magic or no, they were the ones who had to call certain corners; I could only be in one place at a time. But I could pump so much power into the room that even Edward’s words would hold more weight, be more magical. Magical, like the way he touched me.

I sighed as I knelt with the sand that I was using to lay the circle. It was similar to the verves that Dominga had used, but her verves had been for evil and my verve wasn’t even that. It only mattered that the blood I had spilled to prove my intentions had been taken in by this sand for the circle, that Asher and Edward’s blood was mixed as well.

Nothing that I did not wish to would cross that circle.

It took me almost ten minutes to draw it, chanting and pushing power into it with every centimeter that I laid. The inner circle was easily laid. It was perhaps three feet across. Enough room for a small animal or a man to stand without trouble. I left an opening so that I could lock the sacrifice in with magic.

The outer circle was much larger, ten feet or so across and left open for us to enter. I had a small bag of the sand left to seal the sacrifice and us into the circles. Once I had the base finished it was nearly time, and I motioned for Asher and Edward to take their places at the east and west points of the circle. I would take the south, and Elmer would take north.

North for justice, and Elmer was the one seeking justice out of this, that Asher be held safe through it. South for me, because I was vengeance personified. It was my hands that would become bloody with the sacrifice. East and west. Asher and Edward. Opposite points drawn together out of the necessity of justice and vengeance combined.

Not the traditional calling of corners, I know. But we met the requirements for our needs. Some more than others, I thought as I shed the dressing gown I wore over my robe. Asher and Edward stood at their corners, calm, easy. Strong. And each beautiful in his own way, from Asher’s 16th century garb, to Edward casual jeans and shirt.

Their feet were bare, the one requirement that was called for in their clothing. Elmer would be barefoot, also, as was I. My own requirement as petitioner forced me to wear a robe that was made of undyed, pure cotton. It was soft, very soft, but had been made by hand from the picking of the cotton to the stitches set into the seams.

It had been a gift from Marianne when she realized that I would be attempting the ritual, and she knew how hard it was to find these kinds of supplies from a reliable source. So she went to her own coven and they had made it for me. It was a wonderful gift, because it was completely untouched by the human magic of machines and science.

Those two things were the biggest problem with the ritual. I wasn’t requesting the marks be struck by some fallen deity, some forgotten god. I was asking it from the only gods that truly existed anymore. Proven, powerful. And very fey.

It was a risk. But they had been separated from faerie for so long that they didn’t remotely remind me of any Sidhe I’d ever met. But I would _not_ take the chance that wearing something tainted by cold iron, intentional or not, would upset the balance. And I was the one asking. So I had to be perfect.

It was perfect, it was absolutely perfect. Everything was following plan, right down to Elmer leading the sacrifice in, naked. The sacrifice couldn’t wear clothes at all, even the chains that were on him would be removed once he’d been stood in the inner circle. The hood over his head would be lifted and then it would be finished, because I would be there to seal him in until I needed his blood.

I saw Edward’s eyes go wide, his eyebrows shoot up as he turned to stare at me where I stood outside the circle, kneeling and waiting as Elmer began removing the manacles and hood. He was recalling the time I had refused to use a white goat in the past, I thought as I watched him. It was only natural.

But he didn’t know that the man I would kill today was one who had been ready to take my life, the girls’ lives once before. And he had never repented, not even after I handed him over to Asher to play with. I didn’t feel like killing him, Asher didn’t see the sense. So he’d been locked away and kept alive, well fed, but not allowed out, only allowed to contemplate his sins.

And the only thing he had ever done was try and escape to kill me and avenge Van Cleef. So no, there was no regret or second thoughts to killing him. And it wasn’t even in cold blood. It was for love. And justice, if it existed. Because after all Edward had been through, he didn’t deserve to remain the broken creature he’d been any more than he deserved being bound to a vampire for the rest of his life.

Elmer glanced down at me when he ready to release the prisoner, and I nodded, saying, “Do it,” hands ready with a small handful of the sand. He tugged the chains off, threw them behind him through the outer circle’s walkway, and I heard them clank several times before skidding to a halt. The hood was next, yanked off before there was time to think, and the Elmer had moved out of the circle and I was pouring sand and power in to seal it.

I felt the circle snap into place with an almost audible pop that was painful to me. I looked up to see a pale but still muscular man staring in front of him, ready to bolt at the slightest hint of threat. Ready to kill as he ran, with cold blooded murder tingeing his eyes. I could see it in the bloody aura that surrounded him to my magic. He was full of death, a sickly reddish brown-black mud.

He was nothing like the glowing green-gold energy that snapped around Elmer, or the blue-white flames around Asher’s lean form. Even compared to Edward, there was no similarity. Edward’s aura was not as strong as ours, he was tired, just barely healed, and still hurting inside. But that didn’t keep it from being nearly untainted of influence like the killer who stood in my circle. Edward’s energy was a clean, crisp sunny yellow with the barest threads of blood and death running through it.

It was a surprise to see it like that, to see the actual proof that Edward wasn’t as bad as I’d once thought, as some people still believed. I wished that I could extend the power of my sight to everyone so that they could see, so that they could know that he was a good person.

But it was wishful thinking, and I stood, hands steady as I directed Elmer to his point. Then I moved to my point and closed the opening of the circle, turning around to make sure everything was ready. It all seemed proper, even the outer circle thrumming with my power, a dull roar in the back of my mind. I could feel it in my jawbone and the base of my skull. It was reassuring, it meant that something was going right, that everything was going right.

I’d just barely thought that and smiled at Edward when the sacrifice turned around full circle and finally saw the fourth point of my circle. Edward. And he smiled.

I saw Edward’s face go suddenly white, his hands start to shake, the oh so small step he took before realizing it. And I moved forward just in time to see the sickly smiling leer across the sacrifice’s face. It was in that moment that I felt the world drop out from under me as I looked back at Edward.

The rightness that had been there moments before fled in the face of whatever was passing between them, and my hands tightened on the clean white cotton. My nails scraped across it and I swallowed and took another step forward. Then I heard it.

“Undertaker,” the sacrifice said.

Edward’s mouth opened a little, his tongue flicked out to lick his lips. Then, “Reaper,” he whispered. A moment more passed and he said, “Thomas.”

The sacrifice, Thomas, smiled again. “We missed you, pretty boy. Come give us a kiss.”


	14. Chapter 14

Edward took a step back, his foot nearly brushing the powered circle, and I flinched as I felt it bow out to accommodate the fear that was pressing against it. The fear, anger, the _rage_. I took a breath to control myself, not wanting to startle him into stepping back. The backlash of the power wouldn’t kill me, at least I didn’t think it would, but it would _hurt_.

And it would also ruin the ritual, and make it that much harder to try it again. And I didn’t want to run the risk that we’d piss someone off enough that they’d never accept my plea. Not a chance in hell.

I stretched my hand out and pushed power into the circle, as much as I could reasonably part with, strengthening it so that it would push against him if he touched it. It was the only thing I could do, and hope that his foot wouldn’t brush the sand. If that happened it would be too late.

“Edward,” I said. “You have to step forward. You have to get away from the edge of the circle, or you’ll break it and kill the magic.”

His blue eyes flickered to me then back to Thomas, but he took a small step forward. Much smaller than the step he’d taken back, but it was a thought. He took another small shuffling step forward when Thomas shifted into a crouch.

“That’s right, _Edward_,” he said in a hissing whisper. “Come on, come to me. It’ll be good, won’t it?” he said as Edward stood still, like a rock that was just trying to not move. I could see his battle waging, and his own strength failing as his weight shifted.

It was hard to miss; he looked like he was preparing to run. This wasn’t the Edward that I knew. It was the Edward that had been broken and never properly healed. It was the Edward who’d been tortured, I realized, by the monster in the sacrificial circle. I took a step forward, thinking only to protect or reassure him.

He needed it, we needed it to move forward, to move on and break the marks. To make him whole again, to help him be Edward, my Edward, who would never flinch at threats from anyone, no matter if they’d hurt him or not. Thomas couldn’t hurt him again, would never hurt him again after today.

I would see to that.

But my step made Thomas turn to me, to narrow his eyes and lunge forward saying, “Bitch,” as he moved.

I heard Edward call my name, saw him moving toward me out of the corner of my eye as I stood my ground and didn’t move.

He was to me, arms around me pulling me back and away from the attempted attack when he realized that Thomas had never made it more than a foot. He’d rushed headlong into the magic of the circle that had thrown him back, into the other side, and left him collapsed and dazed as it pulsed with power. There was blood at his mouth and nose, a bruise already beginning to swell around one eye.

And he was completely under control.

“He can’t… He can’t come across the circle?” Edward asked. I shook my head and the haunted look on his face began to slip away a little. “He can’t touch me,” he whispered. “Why can’t he cross, but I could break it?”

I smiled, laid a hand on his arm. “It’s magic.” He frowned at me, looking so much like his normal self that I laughed. “That circle is for containment. Ours is for exclusion. He can’t move out of his, and no one can move into ours. But that’s it.”

“So we can move into his?” he asked.

I nodded. “We can move in and out of it, because it’s our blood powering it.”

His eyes narrowed. “Does he have to be in one piece for the ritual to work?”

I didn’t know what to say. I could tell the truth, that the darker the power around Thomas was, the more acceptable he became. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell Edward that he could beat the shit of the sacrifice and help the spell. I was afraid that he’d kill Thomas without meaning to.

Because I’d seen that look in his eyes before. It was the same cold fire he’d burned with when Peter and Becca had been taken so many years ago. And in Becca, again, with Anna the night he’d gone.

But I’d held my tongue for too long, and I could see that he knew the answer without my saying anything. His mouth twisted in a grim smile and he turned, stalking to the circle and stepping through it, careful not smudge the sand after my earlier warning.

He lifted Thomas to his feet by the hair, jerking his head back and making Thomas gasp as pain splintered through his scalp. The smile was still there, but it was getting darker by the moment.

“Hello, Thomas,” he purred. His hand tightened on the hair and the other closed around Thomas’ throat. “It’s been a long, long time.”

Thomas’ hands went to his throat, to tug at Edward’s, but Edward laughed harshly. “It’s different this time, isn’t it? I’m not tied up. You can’t do whatever you want to me anymore.”

For a moment I wondered if Edward was crossing another line. If he would kill, or at least maim Thomas for revenge. But part of me couldn’t blame him. Thomas had hurt him, badly. I didn’t even want to think what I was thinking, because it only made me want to kill him myself.

I knew Thomas had hurt Edward. The pure fear that had first been there before this simmering rage had taken its place was proof enough. But _how_ he had hurt Edward. No. I didn’t want to think of it.

Thomas smiled up at Edward, the anger evident. “You’d be wanting more scars, Undertaker,” he choked out as Edward’s hand flexed around his larynx. “You’d be wanting more, period.”

Edward shook his head. “Oh, no. I’d be wanting revenge.”

He dropped Thomas down; let him fall to his knees before slamming a knee into his face. Thomas grunted with the blow and blood gushed. Thomas’ nose was broken; I could see it in the flattened, smashed way it was placed in his face now. Edward took a step back before any of the blood could do more than smear a little at his knee.

The movement put him outside the circle, and he dropped down to his haunches, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at Thomas with his head quirked to the side. “I could kill you,” he said conversationally.

“Then why don’t you?” Thomas asked as he held a hand to his face. “Go ahead and kill me.”

Edward shook his head. “That’s too good for you. I’m going to give you to Anita,” he said with a wide smile. “That’s what you deserve.”

Thomas glared at Edward. “She already had her chance at me,” he shot back. “She didn’t do a goddamned thing.”

I almost laughed there, broke the angry vengeful mood. Thomas was just as stupid as the rest of Van Cleef’s goons. If he thought that I’d even attempted to do anything to him, then he was highly mistaken. I knew more ways to make him scream than anyone I knew, and nearly all of them I could do without leaving a mark on him.

Edward merely looked at him, then stood and began to walk away. Unfortunately Thomas didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. He started laughing, even through the blood that dripped form his ruined face, he was laughing. It wasn’t hysterical, or maniacal, or insane. It was simply cruel.

“You won’t touch me, will you, pretty boy?” he called out as Edward moved back to his corner of the circle. “You liked what we did to you too much, didn’t you?”

I saw him blanch as he turned to look at Thomas. His face went paler than before, and his jaw clenched. He swallowed, clenched his fists, didn’t say anything. I caught Asher’s sudden alarm from his place to my left, his frantic motion that I stop Thomas before something escalated. And I saw the fear that had once been on Edward’s face escape into wrath like a wisp of smoke into the air.

“Never mistake what happened for my willingness. If I hadn’t been half dead, you would never have been able to touch me,” Edward spat as fury smoldered in his eyes.

He looked at me, still white as a ghost, and I saw something in his face that made me suddenly afraid for him. Despair, misery, something that I knew was forcing him away from me. My heart skipped a beat as I realized that he did care. At the very least, he cared about what I thought of him.

He turned back to Thomas, who was still speaking. “You liked it rough, didn’t you pretty boy?” he was saying low in his throat. I winced to see that his verbose comments were bringing him to arousal, his penis nearly fully erect.

And I knew when Edward saw it by the way he closed his eyes to the sight.

“You liked it when we hurt you, begged for it, wanted it. Don’t try and lie, pretty boy. They’ll know when you lie,” he continued, gesturing to Asher and Elmer.

Elmer was standing calmly in his corner, his eyes closed, and I saw Asher trying to reach out to Edward. It occurred to me then that they were both using the marks to keep Edward from breaking down and screaming or killing the bastard in the circle. The anger on his face was evident, though he wasn’t moving.

“I didn’t ask for it!” he said vehemently before he shut down and stood there with a blank smile plastered across his face.

“Anita, you must hurry. Your lover is most powerful with his rage, and we shall not be able to hold him for long,” Asher called form across the circle.

I nodded and pushed my own power at Thomas, walking towards him as he turned to me, a wary look on his face. I concentrated on it, gathered it around him, and then I leaned forward, one hand outstretched, one finger poised to break the barrier and touch him.

“I can do things that are much worse than death, little man,” I whispered to him. “You would do well to shut your mouth and leave my husband alone.”

He smirked at me. “He’s already broken; look at him.”

I shook my head, he just didn’t understand. Then I pushed my hand through the magic that powered the circle and touched him. It was only a few moments, a dozen long and ragged seconds at the most, but he was screaming like a little child when I took my hand away. His face was already sunken in, his eyes sitting back in their hollows and his skin beginning to hang loose and crisp around his body.

“Will you hold your tongue now, or do I have to do it again?” I asked. “It won’t kill you, you know. You’ll just lay there for the rest of eternity, undying, unable to move, scream, say a word, while your body is a dried out corpse.”

“Quiet, be quiet,” he whimpered, and I released the energy I had taken into him and let him collapse. He curled into a small ball and lay there whimpering as I went back to my corner and signaled for Asher and Elmer to release Edward from their influence.

He stumbled a bit when they withdrew abruptly, and looked around, fear and anger and confusion across his face. He made as if to go to Thomas and harm him, but I shook my head, calling his name.

“The ritual, Edward,” I reminded him. “He must be alive.”

Edward gave one last longing glance at Thomas, and I could almost read his mind as he cataloged the things he would do to torment and torture the sniveling man. I could only wish that he had been able to see me make Thomas scream.


	15. Chapter 15

The near crisis averted, I turned my attention to the thrumming power that filled the circle. It was stronger than when we had started, part from my releasing power to avoid problems, but I’d pulled most of that back to myself. The rest could only be attributed to Edward and his emotions. Asher and Elmer had drained the worst of it off, and had released the now magical energy into the circle.

It would be enough, I hoped, to make whoever listen to us.

I started the ritual, chanting softly with my hands palm up in front of me. “Hail to the guardians of the south, Lute, wind of vengeance, hear me and give me peace.”

It followed into Edward, and he held his palms out. “Hail to the guardians of the west, Syan, wind of peace, I beseech you to bring me justice.”

Elmer looked at me form across the circle as his hands faced the ceiling. “Hail to the guardians of the north. Rhia, wind of justice, hear me and accept our sacrifice.

Asher finished, intoning, “Hail to the guardians of the east, Komar, wind of swiftness, grant us our plea.”

I moved my hands out to the side, feeling the power electrify as a tangy scent began wafting through the circle. It was vaguely citrus, but nothing I knew, and I was certain that the power had garnered someone’s notice. I smiled, but continued on without pause.

“As the corners have been called do we beg the justice of the winds. Our sacrifice is steeped in evil, and our power is pure.” Pale white fog enveloped the inner circle and I couldn’t see across anymore. For a moment I worried that the sacrifice would be rejected, but then the light began to seep into Thomas’ eyes, mouth and nose.

It was then that I knew he was acceptable. The way he knelt with his head bowed, only reinforced it as I stepped forward to pull the short sword that coalesced in front of me. I grasped it carefully with both hands, drawing it from the fog and hefting it between myself and Thomas.

That was it. That was the final obstacle. They would permit me to make sacrifice and then hear the plea in detail. And grant it.

I stepped forward and lifted the sword, smiling the entire time. “The price of blood is met. May you drink of the power and blood that is sacrificed to you this day,” I murmured as I brought the sword down and severed Thomas’ head from his body.

I half expected the blood to begin pooling at my feet, but the fog spread around us and I saw the blood draining into it, not appearing again. The body began to sink into the floor, and I dropped the sword as I stepped back, a little frightened, but more determined to see Edward free.

I dropped to my knees, head bowed. “I beg you, unmark him. Remove the bindings that I had forced upon him. I love him too much for him to be bound. Please,” I whispered. “Free him.”

I felt the answer more than heard it, but my eyes went wide at the tinkling feminine voice that whispered through me. “So shall it be, mortal, for _your_ heart is pure in it. Well met, little necromancer.”

And then I didn’t know anything as the ground rushed up to meet me and I was enveloped in the cool white mist.

I woke to darkness and utter silence. For a moment I was afraid that she had taken me along with Thomas, but then everything else began returning to me. The cool air on my face, the silk that slipped underneath my grasping fingers. The abominable ache that ran through my body.

The way that my wrist and side no longer ached.

I sat up, reaching for the bandages that should have been taped firmly to the raw wound at my waist. But there was nothing there but smooth, firm, skin. My wrist was the same, nothing marring it. Nothing marring any of it, I realized as I ran my hands up and down my arms. They were as smooth as my side now was, as smooth as if nothing had ever touched me.

My hands shot to my neck, to my collarbone, to the now perfect skin I could feel there, and I let out a whimper. I was frightened. This wasn’t the body that I recognized. Or rather to say, it wasn’t what my body was supposed to be. Smooth, pale, perfect, I saw as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Even the stretch marks I had gotten when pregnant with Anna were gone.

“Oh god, oh god,” someone was saying over and over again. It shook me to realize that it was me saying it, shook me to realize that the healing I’d wanted for Edward had backfired and healed me.

I’d only wanted him to be fixed, healed, freed. And now it was me who was healed and… I opened my mind frantically, searching for the one mark I had left to Richard, nearly crying when I didn’t find it immediately. But I breathed a sigh of relief to know that it was there. Still there.

A door opened and light pierced the room enough that I could recognize Asher’s bed, and his silhouette in the doorway. “Sh, _ma cherie_,” he whispered as he came to me and crawled into the bed to hold me still. “It is okay. I promise you that we accomplished what we set out to do, and a great deal more.”

“The marks were broken? Edward’s free?” I whispered, half afraid to hear his answer.

“_Oui_, he answered. “_Monsieur le Morte_ is quite free of the marks we forced onto him.”

“Oh, thank god,” I whispered.

“It would be better for you to thank the fey,” he said with no small trace of irony. “There are things which you must see, Anita.”

My name in that so serious tone. “Does it have to do with why I have no scars?” I ran my hands down over my right knee, feeling for the small scar where I’d skinned it on a piece of glass when I was nine or ten. It wasn’t there. “No scars, Asher,” I said, a touch of hysteria to my voice. “This is too weird, even for me.”

“Then you must prepare yourself,” he said softly as he turned on the lamp beside the bed.

My mouth dropped open as I looked at him, saw him for the first time outside of Jean-Claude’s memories without any scars. I’d thought that Jean-Claude had remembered him more fondly than was real, the scars never letting me believe that he had truly been as beautiful as what I’d seen. But he was more beautiful. Jean-Claude’s memory had not done him justice.

His skin was pale and tinged with a trace of gold, like it reflected off of his hair. And it was perfect. Not a single scar, a single mark to mar the perfection of it. He was so beautiful. My breath caught in my throat and I had to actually remind myself to breathe.

“Oh, Asher,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said softly. “You see? You were not the only one.”

“All of us?” I breathed.

I felt Elmer behind me and turned to look at him. Always before his eyes had been catlike and slanted, green-gold and feline. Now they were a steady warm brown, perfectly straight in his face. He smiled and the slightly sharper points of his teeth were gone. He’d never been as far in as Zane or other weres I’d seen forced to shift into the animal form for too long. But the change was enough to be perceptible.

Even more so when I reached out to feel that he was still a wereleopard. He smiled. “I am at peace with my beast, Anita. It is the only thing that will let me stay with Asher.”

“And Edward?”

Asher nodded a little. “But there is a problem,” he added before I could get too giddy. “When we managed to retrieve you from the mists, Edward did not…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. It seemed like he was trying to find a word, or a phrase.

“Is he alive?” I asked.

“Yes,” Elmer said. “But he hasn’t said a word, moved. He just sits there staring.”

“Take me to him,” I whispered.

I padded after Asher easily, feeling like I used to before hell had taken over every aspect of my life and robbed me of the comfort in my own skin. My knee didn’t click at all; it had started again a year or so ago as the power of the tripled marks began to truly fade. The remains between Richard and I weren’t enough to keep up the magic that had healed me.

I noticed that there was no stiffness in my elbow that had been torn to shreds by Valentine. There was no reason anymore; the scars, scar tissue, all of it was gone. It was perfect. All of my joints moved far more easily than they had in a long time. It was startling to pass mirrors and see my reflection.

There was blank space where Asher walked, Elmer moving along smoothly behind me. And me in a pair of Asher’s pajama bottoms and one of Elmer’s muscle shirts. My skin was so exposed, I felt the urge to cover it with my hands as I used to do. But there was nothing to hide, I realized as I kept staring. I looked like I had coming out of college.

Young, fresh, innocent and naïve. It was as if the hands of time had been turned in reverse.

Asher led me down into the now clean room where I had conducted the ritual. There was no blood, no sand, no nothing that marred the stones. Even the very stones themselves seemed to be clean, fresh scoured and a gleaming white gray that I imagined they’d looked like when they were first laid. It was a drastic change from the darkened facade they’d had before.

And against one wall Edward sat, blue eyes pleasantly vacant as I’d never seen them. I looked at him, taking in the way his hands and arms were clean and free of the scars that had traced across them since he’d come back. There was nothing.

I knelt down in front of him and waved my hand in front of his eyes. “Edward?” I said softly, hoping that he would just smile and answer me back. He didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch when my hand brushed across his eyelashes. He really wasn’t there. Or maybe he just was and didn’t want to come out.

I could easily remember the broken look on his face, the way he had seemed to mentally cave in on himself as Thomas had reminded him of the tortures that had been visited on him. I could only hope that it was a reaction to that. That they fey hadn’t broken his mind. Because I had no idea what had happened to him, if he’d heard anything or been spoken to.

I wouldn’t ask, even though I wanted to know. Because I thought that maybe we’d all been spoken to, since we’d all changed so drastically. It couldn’t have just sprung from my petition. She, the fey, had to have gone into our subconscious. Asher’s desire to be freed of his scars, Elmer’s desire to be free of the deformities that overtly labeled him as a were.

My want to be freed of everything that showed what I’d been through, to be more normal.

Edward’s desire to be free of it all.

I blinked. The thought pounded in my head like a bird against the bars of a cage. He wanted to be free of it all. Of the torment, the torture. The things that they had done to him to make him cooperate. Just to be free of it. And the fey are known for their tricky bargains. Oh yes they are. I didn’t know what the cost to mine or Asher’s and Elmer’s sudden changes.

But I was terribly, terribly afraid that Edward’s price had been his mind.


	16. Chapter 16

I did the only thing I knew to do. I took him home. I took him home and put him to bed, hoping and praying that whatever magic they’d worked on him would fade and let him come back to me. But I wasn’t very optimistic. Tricky, tricky faeries. I should have researched the spell further, found a different sacrifice that wouldn’t upset the balance.

But it was too late for accusations. The damage, what we could find, had been done. Not that taking away my scars wasn’t damage. I had no idea what I would say to anyone when asked. My scars were almost as well reported as I was when I hunted with the police.

The press loved telling and retelling the stories of how I’d earned them. Battle scars they called them.

I sighed. There was no way I was going out to hunt tonight. I picked up the phone and punched in Dolph’s cell number. It rang busy and I flicked the off button quickly before turning it back on and redialing. Still busy. Fuck. I sighed and hit off again. I was about to try again when the phone jangled in my hands.

I answered. “Dolph?” I asked, ever hopeful that he’d been trying to call me and getting the same busy signal.

“No, Anita,” was the answer. It was Judith. “You’re going back out again tonight?”

“Yeah,” I said on a sigh. “Supposed to. We still haven’t caught it, yet.”

“The girls want to come home, Anita. This creature has been all over the news. And that means you are too, and they’re scared,” she said quietly. I assumed that the girls were nearby and she was doing this without them knowing. They hated it when Grandma knew they didn’t want to stay at her house.

“Fuck,” I muttered. I heard Judith bite off something, probably was going to tell me to watch my language, but she apparently thought better of it. “I’ll come get them when I get done tonight. It’ll be around seven. Is that okay?”

“We’ll be up,” was all she said.

I managed to evade any deeper conversation with meaningless small talk and mentioning that I was covered in blood. Not true, but it did get her off the phone in a hurry. Which made me happy. Very happy. I headed back to Edward’s room to check on him. He still hadn’t moved, not even to close his eyes.

I leaned over and peered into them. They were getting dry and blood shot. I went to the bathroom and dug through the medicine cabinet, eventually finding a bottle of eye drops and taking them back to Edward. A few drops in each eye and they were almost as good as new. Now there was just the wait until they dried out again.

I startled at the sound of the doorbell, grabbing the Browning and creeping out. After everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I thought it was better to play it safe. I didn’t need to, it turned out. When I peeked out from behind the curtains, crouching low and not turning a light on, I recognized Dolph easily.

He was standing there, hunched over against the chilly night air, and glaring at the door. “Anita, I know you’re home. You called me twice.”

I flicked the safety back on and opened the door. “I know, Dolph. What are you doing here?”

“Umm.” Yes, very sophisticated.

“What’re you answering the door with your gun for? You haven’t done that in years,” he said, on eyebrow arched and both eyes glancing around the room. It was deceptively casual, but I knew that in the few moments it took him to look, he’d cataloged every last thing in visual line of sight with no problem.

“You aren’t dressed for hunting. Why aren’t you oh, my God,” he said, ending on a whisper. I realized that he had finally taken a very good look at me and realized that I wasn’t… quite normal. “What the hell happened to you, Blake?”

“Well, it’s a long… story?” I said.

“Do share.”

I started laughing. Really, really laughing. Of course, it was more hysterical than anything else. I just didn’t know what to say. _Hey Dolph, I killed a man to give power to a faerie so that she would heal Edward. Who I assaulted, kidnapped, forced vampire marks upon, and various surgeries without his knowledge or consent. And now it’s like years have been shaved off all of us._

Oh yeah. That’d go over well.

Except nothing was going over because I was suddenly crying. Really, really crying in hard, gut wrenching sobs that _hurt_. I tried so hard, and it just… It just went to hell. Everything went to hell, and I don’t care if I’d already lost Edward. Now I really had, because I couldn’t beg him to come back to me from wherever it was he had gone.

He wouldn’t want to come back to me anyway, no matter how nice he’d been the last few days.

I’d scared Dolph. I could see it on his face when he put one arm around my shoulders in a fatherly way. He steered me over to the couch and sat me down, alternately patting my back and telling me that, “Whatever is wrong, whatever happened, it’ll be okay.” I think he would even have offered to fix it, except he wasn’t sure who he’d have to kill.

“It’s all fucked up,” I said as I wiped my tears onto one of my sleeves. “I can’t hunt tonight because I have to try and fix it.”

Not like I _could_ fix it, but I could at least try. And if staying with Edward helped any, if only a blink of an eye, it’d be worth it. I looked up at Dolph. He was watching me with a quizzical expression, and I knew what it meant. _What the fuck happened?_

So I told him. An edited version, of course, in which we attempted to heal Edward with a magical ritual. But something had gone wrong. Everyone (minus the one who hadn’t survived) had been, for lack of better word, healed. But no one else was catatonic like Edward. And he hadn’t moved or offered to move.

For a minute Dolph looked at me like I’d grown another head. “You can _do_ that?”

I nodded. “Sort of. We can ask for assistance from someone who can. If what we offer is enough, then they will.”

“What did you offer?” There was cop in his voice. Hard, uncompromising and, I was surprised to realize, a touch of fear. Not of me, but for me. Because if I had offered a human life he would have to arrest me for murder.

I could argue the magical means, because I’d killed him with a sword. That had coalesced from thin air. In the middle of a magical ritual. No. no arguing. They’d convict me and execute me within three days. If they knew. And there was no way in hell I was telling anyone, much less Dolph.

“Power and blood,” I said easily. “Everyone who participated shed a little blood for the spell.”

“And that was enough?” He was skeptical. I expected it. He was a cop first, father, husband, friend and lover second. Anyone who knew him was used to it by now.

“A master vampire, an alpha lycanthrope, and me, the most powerful necromancer in an age?” I said with no small amount of derision. “Of course it was enough. I would have done it myself if I hadn’t been required to involve the others.”

That put Dolph off a little, not used to hearing me speak so… condescendingly. But it worked and he didn’t ask any more questions about that. He did, however, ask to see Edward. I hesitated at that. I wasn’t sure letting Dolph see him was the best idea in the world. But I also knew that if Dolph saw, he’d understand and let me out of the hunt. Just for one night. That was all I needed.

“Okay,” I finally agreed reluctantly.

I led him down the hall to the room where Edward lay. He was still staring, and I saw his eyes were still okay from the drops. He looked so young. I’d never seen him look like this. He’d always had this hard, old look to him since I’d met him. I figured it was from having to kill or be killed, and his chosen profession of hunting monsters.

I knew that Van Cleef had aged him before his time. Not truly visibly, but it was there if you knew what to look for. I just hadn’t ever expected to see what he might have been if he hadn’t made the same choices. If he hadn’t chosen death as a way of life.

But it was there. No scars, no shadows, no nothing haunting him like it had before.

Dolph stepped quietly to the bed and laid a hand on Edward’s wrist, feeling for his pulse. He checked a second time at Edward’s throat, then peered into his face. “He’s been like this since the afternoon?” he asked as he came back over to me.

I nodded.

“What are you going to do if he doesn’t snap out of it?”

I shrugged, sighed. “If he’s not better by tomorrow I’ll have to take him to the hospital. He has to eat. I can’t let him die because of something stupid like that. He’ll come back,” I said with more conviction than I actually felt. “He always comes back.”

“Can’t deny that,” he muttered. “I still want to know how he came back last time, Anita.”

I smiled, took Dolph back to the living room. I closed the door to Edward’s room almost entirely, giving him one last glance. “He’ll tell you eventually. It’s not my place to share.”

“You’re his wife. You can share,” said Dolph.

I smiled through the quick, sharp pain that lanced through me at that. “In some things, yes,” I finally said, proud that my voice sounded perfectly normal. “But not this.”

There was an edge to my voice on that, a note of finality. He nodded, taking it for what it was and understanding. “Not your story. I respect that.”

He nodded and went to the door, opening it. Dolph stood there with his hand on the knob, looking at me until I finally quirked my eyebrows up in exasperation. He smiled, pleased to have gotten to me.

“You can have tonight. The morning. But we need you back on this before dark tomorrow,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said and closed the door behind him, turning the locks.

I checked on Edward again. There had been no change. Nothing at all. So I went out to the couch and sat down, holding the remote to the television and not turning it on. Just thinking. And listening. And waiting.


	17. Chapter 17

Screaming. There was screaming. I sat straight up in bed, just to find it was the couch. The first thought that came into my mind was Becca and Anna. There were hurt, in trouble, someone was attacking them. I shot of the couch, fumbling for the Browning where it was lying on the coffee table, and headed down the hall with it at the ready.

And then I remembered. The girls were at my parents’ house.

So who was screaming?

“Edward.” I breathed his name and ran for his room.

He wasn’t screaming when I made it to the door and flung it open. He was silent, huddled and curled into a little ball in the center of that big bed. I could see the blanket shivering on top of him, and hear his harsh breathing. He sounded like he was in pain, like someone had just hurt him terribly.

“Edward?” I called softly as I stepped into the room.

I laid the gun down on the desk before I crawled onto the bed and sat next to him, laying one hand softly on his back. He jerked against the touch, nearly coming off the bed as he scrambled away saying, “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me.”

I watched him carefully, holding my hands out with the palms up. “It’s me, Edward. It’s Anita. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He stopped suddenly and looked, really _looked_, around. “I’m back,” he whispered. “I’m back.” His hand shot out to mine and his fingers held me hard. He stared at it, the way he was touching me, and his other hand came to my face, the fingers tracing my cheek, the curve of my jaw.

Then his lips traced mine. I breathed a sigh into this mouth as I opened to him and felt his tongue slip in and caress mine. I almost whimpered when he pulled back and looked me in the eye, smiling. He kissed me again, quickly, chaste. “I’m back,” he said softly.

“Where did you go?” I asked, holding the hand that was on my cheek and watching him. “You were here.”

He shook his head. “You went to the fey, Anita. You asked them for help.”

I nodded.

“Tricky, tricky faeries,” he muttered. “She took me with her past the veil and into _Annwn_.”

“_Annwn_?”

“The Isle of Shadow.”

My breath caught in my throat. “She took you to faerie?” The thought was frightening. “But you were here. We all saw you, you were here.”

He shook his head. “A simulacrum. To protect you.”

“But I don’t need to be protected,” I whispered.

He kissed me again. “I didn’t want you to think that I was gone again. Not like that.”

“What did they do to you?” I asked. “You’re acting…” _Strange_ I wanted to say, but didn’t.

“Faerie psychotherapy,” he said, an odd smile crossing his face.

I shook my head. It was almost too much to think about. “You were only gone for,” I glanced at the clock, “half a day. No one, not even the fey, can do psycho-therapy in twelve hours.”

That crooked smile again. It was beginning to frighten me. “Half a day here isn’t half a day there,” was all he said.

“Because of Thomas?” I asked softly, not wanting to ask how long he’d been there.

He shook his head. “Don’t ask. You don’t want to know. Trust me, you just don’t.” He laughed and it sounded a little hollow and harsh. “Whatever you’re thinking is probably true anyway.”

“Did it hurt? What they did to you?” I asked. “You were screaming.”

That smile, yet again. I really didn’t like it. “_You_ try slipping between dimensions and tell me how pleasant it feels.”

“Oh,” was all I said.

Then he whispered my name. “Anita,” he said, and it sounded like a prayer, and a curse, and painful.

He leaned forward and kissed me then, all tongue and lips and careful, his hands holding my face and his eyes closed, like it was the first time he’d kissed me in forever and the last time he would forever. It hurt, and I nearly cried out at the pain. He’d been gone too long, too long, and now he was really saying good-bye. It felt like that.

But it was all I was likely to get, and I let him lay me back and gently work his hands under my shirt, pushing it up and over my head, his mouth hot on mine as he came back to me after it. His fingers quickly undid my bra and slid it down my arms, hands covering my breasts and kneading gently.

“Edward,” I whispered. “Oh, Edward,” as he dipped his head to taste the skin of my breasts, tongue licking around each nipple in turn.

His hands were at my waist, undoing the jeans and sliding them down and over my hips. I raised my butt so that he could get them off easier, and gave a little kick when the pants caught at my ankles. Then they were tossed to the floor in a crumpled heap. They looked like they belonged there at the foot of his big, wooden bed.

“Please?” he asked as he gently pressed my legs apart and lay between them. I could feel him hot and hard and heavy against me. His clothes were gone and somehow, I had no idea when they’d been thrown on the floor.

I nodded, folding my arms around him as he slid into me. I wiggled a little, it was almost uncomfortable to have him inside me again, and I realized that the changes hadn’t only been superficial. The damned faerie had messed around with everything, but then he was moving and I felt far too good to be thinking.

“Missed this,” he murmured hot against my neck as he nipped at it with his teeth.

I sighed, moaned, ground against him as he moved. I felt the edges of an orgasm beginning as he stroked across my clitoris, the base of his erection rubbing it with every motion. Harder, as he realized exactly what he was doing to me, and it took me crashing into pleasure intense enough to make me see spots.

When I came back down he was still inside me, not moving and brushing the hair back from my face. He kissed my forehead and I closed my eyes, remembering all of the other times he had done so.

“Open your eyes, Anita,” he whispered. “Again. I want to watch you come again,” he said as he began to move again.

It was building more quickly this time, my orgasm and his too. I could feel it in the way his hips would jerk with every third thrust, like he had to fight to hold his steady pace. The way his mouth was open just a little bit to let him breathe through it, the way his eyes were half lidded as he watched me. I moved against him, pushing him back.

“I want on top,” I whispered.

He rolled and let me straddle him, my hand holding him steady as I slid down, savoring the way he filled me and stretched me. I pressed down until he was sheathed fully, squirming just a little to feel the way the wiry hair at his groin pressed between our bodies, the way it rubbed my clit ever so slightly back and forth.

It was delicious, and I began to move up and down slowly, giving a little twist every other stroke as I rode him. I felt it within a minute, the way he moved inside me, throbbing, growing harder and hotter as I moved. It made me ride him a little harder, a little faster, until the end was in sight and I was gasping with it when my orgasm took me.

He thrust up then, once, twice, then he was throbbing and coming and filling me with it. I collapsed against him, head pressed into his sweaty neck, both of us breathing hard. After a moment I sat up, slid off of him, laid down next to him as one hand came up to lay across my back, fingers idly playing with the skin.

We lay there for a time. I don’t how long, I only know that the sun was beginning to rise as my mind swirled. I didn’t know what to think of it. We were getting a divorce, but we always seemed to fall back together. Back into bed, at least, I thought.

And he seemed to read my mind. He sat up, turning away from me. “At least we do this good,” he muttered.

I blinked. Swallowed. That one sentence had pierced me to the core. “Yeah,” I echoed, throat aching with the need to cry and voice hollow. “We do this really well.”

I crawled out of his bed and gathered my clothes and gun, escaping to my room and the master bath before giving into the sting behind my eyelids. My tears mixed with the water as I showered, cleaning myself of every last shred that we had just made love. Had sex. Fucked. That was all it was. Sex, fucking. The beat of the water covered up the sounds I made.

When I was cleaned, dried and dressed I finally looked at the clock. Almost seven. I would be late picking the girls up. But I had one thing to do first. Before I went to the door I stopped in the kitchen and opened the junk drawer. They were still there, there still shoved into the back and covered by useless things.

Useless things that were just as useless as my marriage, as me hanging on to my marriage.

I flipped it open to the first blank spot that had a red tab next to it, scribbled my name. Three more red tabs, three more scrawled signatures, and it was done. I had signed the papers. I had signed the fucking papers. I closed it, threw it on the table, the pen, too, so that he would have something to finish the job.

Then I left, slamming the door behind me and peeling out of the drive.


	18. Chapter 18

The girls were just sitting down to breakfast when I arrived. I’d been late. Not by much. But I’d been late. I waited for them to finish eating. Judith offered to fix me something to eat, too, but I declined. I wasn’t really that hungry to begin with, not with the roiling nausea that had invaded me after signing the divorce papers.

Andrea and Josh weren’t there. Andrea had decided to stay in the dorms at college that semester, and Josh had moved out a few weeks before. He’d landed a pretty decent job with an accounting firm in downtown St. Louis not too far away from my building. We’d caught up for lunch the day after he’d left. He was pretty happy to be out on his own.

I must have looked worse than I felt because Judith took me aside while Dad played with the girls for a few minutes. She handed me a cup of coffee without a word and sat down beside me as we watched Dad chase Becca while Anna rode on his back. I took a sip of the coffee without thinking, surprised to find it the same freshly ground beans I used at home. It was even real cream and sugar.

I glanced at Judith and she smiled. “You look like you could use a friend.”

I shrugged. “I’m okay,” I said, not meaning a word of it, but not sure I had it in me to confide in Judith.

I wasn’t sure there was anyone I could confide in without repercussions. And I certainly couldn’t tell Judith about half the things that my current problems involved. Besides, I didn’t even know where to start. Especially with Edward.

“Your husband made a rather miraculous return from the dead, didn’t he?” she commented.

I gave her a weak smile. “It’s a long story. Complicated.”

“Try me,” she said, a faint edge of steel to her tone.

I hadn’t heard that from her before, and I looked her in the eye. Something had changed. I don’t know what had changed in her, but something had changed. Then I heard the faint ringing of bells, soft to the ear, and that ringing tone again. “Well met, little necromancer. Well met,” in that honeyed voice.

Well fuck. The faerie bitch had meddled everywhere. I sighed. Maybe bitch was harsh, but I wasn’t used to having everything in my life uprooted at once. Especially Judith’s views about my life. But if she could be even a little more accepting… It would make things much more pleasant in the family. And maybe I wouldn’t avoid them so much.

“It turns out that the guy who’d killed him hadn’t really killed him.” I groped for an appropriate way to put it, then, “He kidnapped Edward. And blackmailed him into doing some terrible things.”

“Is he alright?” she asked quietly, matching my tone so that the girls wouldn’t hear.

“He will be,” I replied.

“And you?” I didn’t answer. “The both of you?”

I shook my head, looking down into my coffee. “He wants a divorce,” I whispered, hating the broken sound to my voice. Hating it for being that way in front of Judith. For being that way period.

I heard her take a sip of her coffee. “Is there more to it than the separation?”

“I lied to him about something before he was taken,” I said in a low voice. I looked up to see her shaking her head.

“You don’t need to tell me Anita, it’s really is none of my business. That’s something best kept between husband and wife. But answer me this,” she said blithely. “Do you love him?”

I nodded. “Very much.”

“And did you try to fix things? Do your very best to repair it and show him how you felt?”

I nodded again.

“Then it will all work out in the end.”

Somehow, I think Judith was still channeling the faerie.

When we got home they made a beeline for Edward. Anna raised her arms to him so that he could lift her. He did, pressing a kiss to her cheek and hugging her tight. Becca wrapped her arms around his waist, holding tight. Edward dropped his free arm to her and wrapped it around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of her blond hair.

To me he only nodded.

I brushed past him, not saying a word, not even daring a hello lest the girls realize that Mommy was about to cry. Again. They might think something’s wrong because I didn’t say anything, but that I could at least cover up with the urgent need to get on the case. At any rate, he didn’t offer a word to me, either.

I headed for the bedroom, surprised to find it was nearly ten in the morning. I’d left at five to seven and had somehow managed to sit around at my parents’ house for three hours. Unheard of for me, but not so surprising considering the girls hadn’t quite been ready to leave.

My shoes were kicked off at the door and I dropped the shoulder holster and gun at the foot of the bed. It was still made from days earlier, and I lay down on it, thinking that I had too much to do before I could leave and try and catch a real monster.

I still had a lot to do when I woke up at half past two. Though not as much as before, because before it was only busy work. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and padded out in my socked feet to see what everyone was doing. I found them asleep, too.

Edward was stretched out across the back of the couch, his head lolled back. His mouth was open and his eyes closed, and he was snoring lightly. I smiled and bit back a laugh. Anna was snuggled under his left arm, which was wrapped around her holding her to him. Becca’s head was in his lap and his other hand on her back, as if to reassure himself she was real, and there, and not being taken again.

The credits to _Aladdin_ were rolling across the screen, and I picked up the remote and turned it off, pressing the rewind button. I lowered the volume some and switched it to a news station before deciding to just turn it off. They were covering the latest footage on the city council’s vote for restoring the Blood Quarter into an appropriate family centered attraction.

I shook my head when I turned it off, knowing that it would never happen. Asher and every other preternatural anybody in St. Louis would fight it tooth and claw. The Quarter was the only place they had any peace. The only place where almost everyone else had as much to hide as them.

I headed for the kitchen and pulled out some cereal and milk. Then put the cereal back as I realized that the milk had spoiled with everything that had been happening. There was plenty to cook, but I was trying to be quiet. It took me a few more minutes before I decided to try for tuna.

A bowl, half a dozen pickles, a couple cans of tuna, and some mayonnaise and mustard later I was equipped with homemade tuna salad. And no bread. But that was fine. There were crackers. And cheese. I layered the tuna onto the crackers and then squares of yellow cheese on top, pleased at the outcome. It tasted just as good as a sandwich. Maybe better, considering I could pop one into my mouth and chew it whole.

I put the rest of the salad away and took my plate of tuna’d crackers with me to the bedroom, hunting out some clothes to wear on the hunt. I knew that my normal hunt clothes were still filthy. They were also still at the Circus. I normally didn’t have to worry about dragging them between one place and the other. But this time they had gotten caught in the unfamiliar confusion.

That was fine, I had other clothes. No other black pants that I was willing to wear out. Dress clothes do not a hunting outfit make. So I settled on some very old, very worn, very soft and pliable blue jeans, sliding them on before munching on another cracker. Two crackers later I’d settled on a nice long-sleeved shirt that would take the chill out of the air.

It was gray and a fuzzy fleecy cotton. There were holes at the end of the sleeves for my thumbs, too, which was a plus so that I didn’t have to worry about sleeves flying everywhere. I normally wore it to sleep in during winter, the holes looping to keep the sleeves down so that my arms stayed warm. But it would work tonight.

I slid the shoulder holster on over it, not bothering with an over shirt. I was going to be on official police business. If they had a problem with it being exposed, they could kiss my ass and deal with Dolph. Either way, I’d still get to wear my gun. The knives followed, but I strapped them to my waist and down my thighs. There wouldn’t be any need to have them at my wrists. It would only get in the way if the revenant jumped me again.

I was lacing on an old comfy pair of hiking boots when the phone rang. I sprang for it, sending the charger crashing to the ground as I yanked the phone from it in an effort to keep the house quiet. I didn’t want Edward, Anna and Becca woke if I could help it. So ungraceful dives across beds it was.

“Yeah?” I said tersely into the phone, hoping it was Dolph.

It was. He sounded almost pleased. “Anita. You’re hunting tonight?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m getting ready right now. I wanted to be out there by five,” I replied as I went back around the bed to my boots and finished putting them on.

“Larry and Eve said they might have something,” he said, an edge of urgency to his voice.

“Are they there?”

“Yeah,” answered Dolph. “Which one do you want?”

“Evie.”

I heard Dolph say, “Eve.” The there was a muffled curse, a short female laugh, and then the sound of the phone being passed. “Anita, we have blood, and we think it’s the revenant’s,” she crowed happily.

I smiled wide. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as we can be until one of us tries to trace him with it,” she said, only marginally more quiet.

“You’ll wait till I get there,” I said. Ordering, not requesting, and by her answering sigh I could tell that she understood.

“We’ll wait for you, Anita. You run the show.”

“And don’t you forget it,” I said with a laugh. “Put Dolph back on.”

“When can you use the blood?” he asked when he had the phone back. No preamble, just straight down to business. But I suppose I couldn’t blame him considering this thing’s kill record. It was only a matter of time till it took out a cop, or one of us.

“Better to wait till nightfall,” I said as I thought. I could probably do it in daylight, but I’d rather wait. Who knew what would happen if I tried to track the creature before dark? We’d have to face it on its terms, its turf. Which would most likely be underground in the caves or the sewers.

Unless we got lucky and it had holed up somewhere vacant.

“It would be safer for us then,” I finally said when I realized that he was waiting for my reasoning.

“What about everyone else?” he asked. “It’s okay to wait and let more people get slaughtered because it’s safer for us?”

“Take it easy, Dolph,” I said. “If it kills us before we kill it, a whole lot more people are going to die than if it gets someone else before we get it after dark.”

“That almost didn’t make sense,” he muttered. “Okay, all right. We do it your way. Five, Anita. Be here before five.”

“I will,” I said. Then I hung up. Nope, no goodbye. Still no goodbye. Dolph had trained me well. I smiled at the thought.

I stood and moved around the bed trying to be quiet. I picked the charger up and sat it back on the nightstand and replaced the phone in it. I paused, staring at the picture that was behind it and the clock. It was a picture that someone, I don’t know who, had taken at the wedding of me and Edward.

I was smiling at the camera. I remembered it because it was the first time I’d smiled since I’d actually said ‘I do,’ and it was at some perverted joke that Jason had told me trying to get me to laugh. But it wasn’t that that I noticed. I really didn’t know how I’d missed it. Maybe I just hadn’t ever looked at the picture.

It’s not like it was one of the happiest days of my life, at least not at the time. Even afterward, it was still like a terrible, horrible joke, because it wasn’t really real. It was just a setup to save Edward from becoming a chew toy for a pack of werewolves. Except that I’d really wanted it to be real, especially after I thought he’d died.

And looking at it was too painful.

But I looked at it now. I picked it up and stroked my fingers down the glass, smudging the thin film of dust as I did. In the picture, _in the picture that was taken on our wedding day_, Edward was watching me. Smiling at me. Touching my hair and I hadn’t noticed.

He was smiling at me. He looked happy. We looked happy, no matter that it was a coincidence that the picture had come to be. And oh, how grateful I was that it had. When he was gone, I would treasure this photo, and never let it get dusty again.

I didn’t realize that I was crying until a tear splashed onto the glass. I rubbed at it and then at my eyes, cursing for being so silly. I’d been crying entirely too much lately, and I needed to get out of the habit. I put the picture back, smiling a little as I looked at it. At least there it seemed that Edward wanted me.

Then I turned around and ran into him.


	19. Chapter 19

Edward’s eyes were darkly blue when I looked up into them, very nearly plastered against his body and dangerously off balance from where I had slammed into him. He put his hands out, wrapped his arms around me automatically steadying me until I had my own balance. I took a hasty step back when he released me, looking down and rubbing my palms on my jeans.

“Edward,” I said softly. I looked back up. “How long were you standing there?”

“Long enough. You’re hunting tonight?” he asked. He tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, just watching me and not saying a word.

I nodded carefully, not taking my eyes off of him. “I have to. If I don’t and it kills more people…”

“Then it’s your fault?” he asked. He shook his head when I nodded. “You don’t have to do everything, Anita. You’re just one person. Why not let Eve do it? Or Larry? Or the witch that RPIT has on squad?”

I bit my lip. “Because I let it get out in the first place,” I whispered. “I let it get out because I didn’t wait for backup.”

“Your just one person, Anita!” he burst out. “You can’t do everything! You’ve got like, this hero complex or something to think that you do. You can’t save everyone,” he whispered. “No matter how hard you try, _you can’t save everyone._”

“I know that,” I shot back, eyes flashing with my temper. “I know I can’t fucking save everyone. I couldn’t save you, I couldn’t save Jean-Claude, I can’t even fucking save myself!” I stopped suddenly, turning from him and was forced to look at the picture again. “I can’t save us, Edward.”

He didn’t say anything and I turned back, laughing hoarsely. “So much for your hero complex. I can’t save anything.”

“So you’re going to go hunting tonight to try and save someone,” he said.

I nodded. “Anyone.”

He reached out to me, rubbed his thumb along my nose and under my eye. “You’ve got dust smudged on your face,” he said quietly. I stood there and let him do it, just memorizing the feel of his fingers on my skin. He pulled his hand back suddenly, shoved it deep in his pockets.

“Be careful?” he asked softly as his blue eyes met mine. “Promise me you’ll be careful?”

“I promise, Edward. I’ll be careful.”

He nodded, as if he had expected anything but my agreement. “Good luck,” he whispered. I tried to smile at him but only ended up swallowing the words I nearly said. He didn’t want to hear them; he’d already thrown my confessions of love back into my face. So instead I just nodded and walked past him, knowing that he would take care of everything if I wasn’t careful enough.

I wasn’t there at five. I wasn’t even heading there. Instead I was back at the origin of the crime, wondering if maybe the human blood from the deceased could be used to trace the vampire that had risen. Blood was the key, as always. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but I had to try.

Which was why I wasn’t answering my angrily ringing cell phone and was waiting for Dolph to come back me up at the hospital in my attempt to get the needed blood. I was arguing hard and loud for the blood, trying to get them to release it to me based on my badge, my reputation, and the fact the night was quickly approaching when another badge was slammed down hard on the counter next to mine.

“Give her the fucking blood,” Dolph said in a hard, angry voice.

I took a step back. He was covered in blood, from the bristled tips of his peppered hair to the once shiny toes of his wingtips. Blood everywhere.

“Who’d you kill?” I asked as the nurse finally scampered off to fetch me the bag that I wanted. I give a damn of it’s a rare blood type and what if someone needs it? If that blood will keep a dozen more people from dying, I’ll let some poor sap wait on some to be airlifted in.

Dolph’s eyes cut to the side, glancing at me and then around to make sure no one would overhear. “The _captain_,” and the word dripped with venom as he said it, “decided to override everyone’s authority in the investigation—including yours over Eve and Larry—and have her try and track the revenant with the blood.”

“Well, fuck,” I breathed. “In full daylight?” He nodded. “Without a fully trained necromancer?” He nodded. “Without _me_ there to watch out for my people?”

A faint smile crossed his face and made it a truly frightening visage. I heard the little gasp as the nurse brought blood and passed it over to me as quickly as possible before sliding the little glass window closed and, dare I say it, scurrying away. Would have said running, but there wasn’t enough room for him to catch his stride.

I looped it over my arm by the trailing lines and headed for the exit, Dolph trailing me like a bloody god. “He’s been arrested for murder, among other things,” Dolph said with a snicker.

“Say what?” I explained, turning to stare at him. “And you’re not riding with me are you? Because I’m not paying for the seats to be cleaned again.”

“Department will pick it up, just get us there,” he said.

We were in, engine cranked, buckled, and pulling out of the hospital parking lot before he clarified his cryptic bombshell. “He decided that there was no sense waiting for you when we had another necromancer at our disposal,” he began, emphasizing on ‘disposal’. He raised his hands when I shot him a glare over that. We were so not at their disposal, we were there to help.

“Don’t look at me like that, Anita. His words, not mine. But anyway, he got all up in Eve’s case about it and pretty much threatened to arrest her for obstruction of justice if she didn’t do the spell. So she did.”

“And the revenant came?”

He shook his head and I made another turn. “No, some completely innocent and out of the loop vampire whose girlfriend just happened to have been one of the victims. That’s why she had his blood. Some weird marriage contract thing, best we can guess.”

“And he did…?” I glanced at Dolph from the corner of my eye. “Come on, this is like pulling teeth. Spit it out.”

“He went after Eve, Larry pulled him off and then he went after a couple uniforms. Eve and Larry broke the spell and he quit attacking everyone, except it was too late and he was already burning.”

“So the vampire is dead, and the uniforms and Eve are what, okay?” I asked.

“They’re okay. Bites, nothing too bad. Eve got her first battle scars,” he said, his voice tinged with regret. “It shouldn’t have been like that. Not because of some bureaucrat and his bullshit. He was up for promotion. Bagging this vampire would have nailed it. Now he’ll be going to prison because he forced Eve to use her magic and it killed someone.”

“So who gets his promotion then?” I asked, trying to keep things light as we got closer to the flashing lights of the scene.

“My boss.” That devilish grin again, white flashing in crusting blood.

“And who gets his job if he moves up?”

“I do.”

“Well, Dolph,” I said with a grin as I braked next to the line of police cruisers. “Think you can renegotiate our retainers if you get bumped up?”

“Probably. But you’re going to have to get this thing to come and play.”

We didn’t say anything else as we slid out of the Jeep and headed to the thrumming magic behind the cruisers. Didn’t need them shouting nepotism. Or whatever it would be in this case, because Dolph would make sure we made our money’s worth if he were in the position. He’d also make sure that RPIT got the pay raises and salary perks that they deserved, like all silver ammo.

But for now, I decided to just focus on the magic at hand and getting the revenant. I didn’t see any bandaged uniforms around, but Eve was still there with Larry supporting her. She had white gauze wrapped around her left forearm from wrist to elbow, and I winced. She wouldn’t still be here if it were bad, but still, it was a painful thought that she might have been mauled like I was.

Was. My hand slid over the now clean and smooth skin at my own elbow. Nothing there. I was healed. Fucking faerie, meddling where they aren’t supposed to.

“All right, let’s do this,” I said as I pushed through Eve’s magic and into the circle. “Eve! Yank it down,” I called as I threw up a faint circle just inside hers.

I waited till she’d pulled all of her magic back inside before splitting the bag open and dipping my fingers inside it. Then I walked the trace of power I’d laid, sprinkling the blood and pushing my necromancy into it, calling to the owner, the master of the blood. Willing them to come forth and take it back.

Daring them.

Years of studying, improvising, learning, and I still wasn’t satisfied with the basic ritual and calling of the spell. I dipped my hand into the last of the blood and smeared it at my forehead, inside my shirt over my heart, and under the shirt at my abdomen, to the chakra points that would best help me fuel the magic.

Then I pushed, and pushed hard, sending the magic through the blood in a blaze of red light where it circled up out of the ground, demanding that the revenant come claim its lost blood or I would take it all back. I couldn’t do it, I knew that, but the power behind the magic would trick it enough and then it would be too late. We’d already have found it and have killed it before it realized what had happened.

I pushed again and this time the magic flowed out in a burst of red that just flew out from me, through everyone and everything. The uniforms jumped. Dolph merely raised an eyebrow. Larry and Eve drew their guns and tightened their grips, knowing that the magic was too strong for the animal to ignore. Even if it wasn’t his blood, the chances of him coming were very good, because blood calls to blood.

There should have been more time. There should have been some type of warning. And no one should have parked on top of a fucking manhole.

Because if no one had, then the cruiser that came flying past my head and breaking the circle wouldn’t have, and the revenant wouldn’t have escaped the pull of the magic. Because if the magic had still been functioning he would have come straight for me, right into the circle and I would have had him in my control.

But no, someone had to be brilliant and fuck everything up. Because when the revenant came, he came without pause, without warning, without anything, smashing anything between him and the blood that drew him.

And of course, the last thing in his way would be me.


	20. Chapter 20

I am a vampire hunter, killer. I have faced down hundreds of vampires, some of them as old as time itself. I have met and conquered ancient gods, and even held my ground against an honest to God demon. I have died, more than once, and come back to life to continue. I have lived, loved and lost.

I’ve been a mother, for Christ’s sake.

So when I have a blood crazed magically fueled psychotic revenant coming at me, what do I do?

I run.

And I did run, past the magic, past the cops and their cruisers and their oh so ineffective guns. I put my head down, pulled my elbows in and pumped my legs, relishing the ease that my knees moved with and immediately pushing that thought out of my head as a garbage can flew past me and shattered into the brick of the building I was headed past.

I dodged around the people staring stupidly on the sidewalk and spared a moment’s glance back to see if any of them were falling to the revenant. If they were, it was because he wasn’t pausing to weave around people, he was only moving swiftly toward me. As it was, people were still blocking my path when I swiveled my head back to forward.

It only served to emphasize the fact that my path opened up his, and I knew he was very close behind me.

In all honesty, I had no clue how I was managing to stay ahead of it at all. The only thing I can think of was the sheer terror that fueled me. That, and running every other morning for years. It was a novel way to escape and I felt that it was one I should always have open to me. And it was almost working.

It was at the precise moment that I thought I might be able to get away from it well enough to figure out how to kill it that I began paying attention to the people I was running through. It seemed like there were hundreds, as if all of St. Louis had suddenly decided that they needed to get out of the house. And not so incidentally, in my way.

Regular people I could understand. This was the Blood District, the gathering place of vampires and a hell of a way to spend a night: challenging death or immortality. To walk with the undead and come out unscathed, but thrilled. I never did get it, not really. But if everyone else wanted to risk their immortal souls, fine with me.

But what the _fuck_ was a kid doing there?

Not that far in front of me was a woman, not so old as she was young, with a little kid in tow. He was cute, towheaded and looking up at her. And in the path of a revenant. Not a good combination. Even if the vampire continued not to attack anyone he bowled over, it would still hurt that kid. Maybe kill him, considering the strength of the undead.

“Fuck,” I muttered. Then I took a deep breath and screamed at her. “Move! Get out of the way, get your kid, run!”

She looked up and stared at me, at us, I realized as the revenant came up behind me. It was like a deer in the headlights, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. She took a moment and scooped the boy up, turned her back to us and cradled him into her body, prepared to take a blow. To take death, so long as he was saved.

What was it Edward had said? A hero complex? Oh yeah.

I turned, planted my feet, drew the Browning from the shoulder holster. And I tried facing it, tried staring down the barrel coolly at the revenant and save the day by squeezing that trigger until the gun clicked empty, every bullet already let fly and doing no good. It was still coming at me, an entire clip and nothing.

There was no way I missed every time. I had to have made at least one or two headshots, but it didn’t matter a bit as the vampire slammed into me, driving us both head over ass onto the pavement. I rolled with it, dropping my shoulders in and tucking my head to take as much of the fall on the flat planes of my back.

It did take most of the impact; I’d have some interesting bruises if I lived through this. We rolled, it one way and me another until I’d flipped back over and was in a crouch, hands splayed on the ground and the Browning in the open space between us. It was getting up slowly, as if it had been dazed by hitting me.

Or maybe it was just the residual blood magic I still had surrounding me. For whatever reason it wasn’t moving as quickly as it should have been. But there was no chance that it would give me enough time to scramble for the gun; I was going to be alone against the thing armed with some knives. And nothing else.

I had to try. I was too afraid of going up against it with two knives, it was too likely I’d die that way. I scrambled, moving in a crouching run trying to get to the gun before the revenant turned to me again. I didn’t make it, didn’t expect to, but I tried.

The creature’s arm took me in mid stride, sweeping in and hitting me with such force that I flew back into the side of a car. The dent was rather magnificent, and the alarm shrieked noisily as I blinked a couple times and slumped forward a bit. It took me a minute to clear the fog from my brain, to make it work and try to make sense of what was happening.

There weren’t any screams, which might have been good. Or it might just mean that the revenant had killed everyone around and had gone off looking for new prey. But as my vision cleared and my eyes remembered what they were supposed to do I saw that there were still living people standing around. Their faces were contorted in fear, horror, and their mouths hanging open.

It was then that the ringing in my ears cleared and I heard the repeated and steady crunch of a fist on metal, and I realized that the alarm was driving the revenant crazy. It was beating the crap out of the car trying to make it stop.

I stumbled forward, catching my hands against the pavement as I tripped, but limping around the back of the car, a hand to my side. I watched as the mother and her son moved, the only ones to do so, away from the scene, and as far down the street as she could hurry. At least if no one else was saved, they were.

I took one last look at the creature and the car as it gave another wallop and the alarm faded abruptly as it apparently was destroyed. The revenant looked up, around, not noticing the people standing around. My heart skipped a beat as I realized that it was looking for me.

Its head started to swivel around to face me and I took one more step back into the cool shadowy darkness of an alley. The only sound was my feet hitting the pavement as I ran down it and ducked behind a pile of garbage, back against the rough brick wall.

“Oh god, oh fuck, oh god,” I gasped as I hid from it.

My back and side ached fiercely where I’d caught the blow from the vampire’s arm and then hit the car. I didn’t think anything was broken; it didn’t hurt that badly, or at least in the same way. I did a quick check, pushing the soft gray fleece up and peering at my side in the dark, running my hands under it and across my back. No blood, no unusually sensitive spots. Nothing broken.

I nearly jumped as I heard it move into the alley. It sent a garbage can flying, clattering along the alley as it bounced off the wall. I slipped on of the knives from its sheathe along my thigh, continued to crouch against the wall with my heart in my throat. Not much, but something, and at least I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

I couldn’t keep running anyway. Someone other than me was going to catch it in the end, and that wasn’t something I could live with. At least if I died, I knew I’d do my damnedest to take the bastard with me. And the girls… They’d survive. Edward would help them. Everyone would help them. They’d survive.

Another trash can, a dumpster flung to its side. An inhuman growl, screech, I don’t know what. It made the chills run down my spine and the hairs all across my body stand on end. I closed my eyes I had another can, closer this time, go flying into a wall.

_ Please God, _ I thought. Then nothing would come. I couldn’t pray for myself. Chances were, I was going to die. There wasn’t much hope for me. My breath caught in my throat as his eyes flashed in my mind. Brilliant blue, watching me so quietly.

_ Be careful? Promise me you’ll be careful? _

I swallowed. Not careful enough. I wasn’t ready to die, though. Not nearly ready. I had way too much to live for, to fight for. I had something most people only dream of. A family.

“I promise, Edward. I’ll be careful,” I whispered as my fingers clenched around the hilt of the knife and I rocked forward onto the balls of my feet, legs stretching as I launched myself from the wall and around the garbage I’d hidden behind.

It was maybe ten yards away, a garbage can lifted and ready to be hurled against the wall as it continued to hunt for me. Its maddened eyes widened as it saw me and the can clattered down to the ground as it started towards me, hands outstretched and fingers hooked into claws. I was startled to feel an answering burn from my own body and cursed as I realized that it had been homing in on my painted chakras.

They were pulsing faintly in time with my heartbeat, glowing a soft bloody red. I swiped my free hand over the one at my forehead, smearing it enough to disrupt the magic there but doing nothing about the others. There was no time and the creature was too close, nearly to me and I raised my hand, grabbing the hilt of the knife with both hands as if it were merely a very short sword.

I swung it up, blade first and letting the tip begin to sink through the soft, fleshy meat under the creature’s jaw. If it worked with zombies, it would work with the revenant, I thought, remembering one time before where I had used the trick to keep something from taking bites out of me. It stumbled back, the knife only partially spearing it, and I pressed forward, knowing that I needed to finish the job.

I pushed it back into the wall and ignored it as the revenant’s arms came up around me in a bear hug, squeezing me tight. I toed my boots into the slick concrete beneath my feet, forcing the tread in to give me enough traction to keep forcing the knife until it was buried to its hilt and the creature was screaming and snarling around it, unable to open its mouth and get a hold of me.

I screamed with it as it squeezed me hard, squirming and trying to escape before it snapped my spine, and finally tried to out-pain it. I hooked my thumbs and drove them into the eye sockets, burying them to my palms in warm wet goo as I burst the vampire’s eyeballs. They’d grow back, true, but for a few minutes I might have an advantage.

It worked and the revenant let go of me, hands going to its face and it crouched low into a ball making little mewling screams as I drew my second knife. My last weapon, and if I lost it I’d either have to die fighting or run for it, hoping I’d come across something else.

As it still knelt there in the filth it had created by throwing garbage I darted forward, letting my knife bite into its neck at the back, then darting back trying to keep out of reach. The pain of its lost eyes was forgotten in the new onslaught as I began trying to severe its head the hard way, and it chased me blindly down the alley.

I could see it blinking viciously as its eyes grew back and it began homing in on me better, landing blows that made me grunt and cry out as I kept moving in, trying to find that one spot that would let my knife cut through completely. But I was too slow and it was too quick to heal, no matter the animal mind that drove it. The next time I moved in I wasn’t quick enough, and it grabbed me at the throat and slammed me into the wall.


	21. Chapter 21

My breath left me in a whoosh and my vision danced around as my head slammed into the bricks. The knife clattered loudly on the ground and my hand flexed around thin air. I managed to get one breath of air before it began squeezing with one hand, the other scrabbling at its throat and the hilt of my other knife.

My hands clawed at the beefy fist wrapped at my neck, but I couldn’t loosen its grip. Black spots began to dance again and I kicked at it. It didn’t work, and it had managed to get some purchase on the blood slick hilt of the knife that held its jaws shut. It gave a tug and the knife slipped out a fraction of an inch. It wouldn’t take much more trying before it managed to get it out with brute strength.

And when that happened, it would feed. On me. And I would be very, very dead.

I widened my eyes, trying to make the spots go away, and my head began to loll to the side. Then the revenant’s grip on me slipped for a moment before tightening again. It was enough to get another breath, however shallow, and I began fighting again, my mind racing. I had to get out of its grip.

Fuck that, I just had to kill it.

Bloody white bone glistened at me from its throat where I had chopped and hacked. It wasn’t growing back as quickly as I had feared, but it was growing back. I had to do something, but I didn’t know what to do short of sticking my hands in that gaping wound and trying to sever its head with my own two hands. And that would never work, because I just didn’t have that kind of strength.

But I did have enough to cut, and I had a knife, I realized as I watched it give another tug and pull the knife out nearly halfway. A knife that, once removed, would take away my safety in it mauling me. But if I didn’t take the chance of a bite or two then I’d be worse than that. I had to try before all of the work I’d made before was too healed to help.

I shoved its hand away from the hilt of the knife and tugged hard enough to jerk it out and send it thumping against my chest bone painfully. My hands nearly slipped in the gush of blood, but my fingers clenched around the hilt in fear at the thought of this knife, too, falling to the ground uselessly.

The revenant screamed loud, mouth wide and fangs bared at the sudden aching pain of the removal. Its head went back as it prepared to strike and I blinked and then thrust forward. The tip of the knife slipped easily between the white bones I could still see and I felt the pop as the spinal cord severed. It fell back suddenly boneless and limp, and I rode it to the ground, straddling it as it lay there gnashing its teeth and screaming in frustration that it couldn’t bite me.

The tip of the knife hit the ground and it was forced back up in my hands and out. Before the revenant could have the moments it needed for the spine to reconnect I flipped the blade over to the side and sawed through, severing the head and making it skid back several feet with the force of my cutting. It went abruptly silent as it effectively killed the creature, and I took a very deep breath.

But it wasn’t over, not yet. I slid down so that I was straddling its thighs now, digging the knife in at the stomach and then pushing my hand up in until I felt its cold, unbeating heart. I worked the knife in carefully and cut it out, pulling and tugging at the last of the veins and arteries, too tired to take the time to cut them properly.

When it was out I laid it on the ground and looked at it for a moment. It didn’t move. Didn’t offer to beat at all. But I was already halfway there, and finished the job by stabbing the knife into it and letting it clatter over, the heart spitted and effectively dead. I saw my other knife a foot or so away and reached over, picked it up.

The weight was reassuring, and I stood weakly and went over to the head. I repeated the process. Putting one booted foot atop the head and then shoving the second knife through it so that there was no chance of it ever coming back. When Dolph found me he’d burn them, and I’d get my knives back. But until then I felt safer with them where they now were.

I took a moment, just breathed as I stood there. Then the dizziness, the weariness all washed over me. Every single ache and pain made itself known, the little scrapes and bruises suddenly screaming at me. I laughed in disbelief. I was alive. I was alive, and I was hurting.

I was still laughing as I sat against one wall when Dolph found me.

For some reason everyone thought I was hysterical when they did find me. I’m not saying that it’s normal to find a thirty-something year old woman laughing in an alley, in the dark, covered in blood, with a headless corpse a few feet away, and the head and heart next to it, stabbed through with silver blades. But it was rather odd that they couldn’t see the humor in it.

Or maybe I really was a little hysterical and they were right to be worried.

As soon as Dolph appeared out of the light at the edge of the alley he took charge of the scene, directing Perry and two others, uniforms both of them, to secure the scene and verify the kill. He sent another pair of uniforms who looked young enough to be babies fresh from academy to get the coroner. They looked rather relieved to not have to stay at the scene. There was still so much blood.

Zerbrowski left of his own accord, having followed Dolph and paused just long enough to take a look at me and then he was off for the paramedics, dragging one of them back by his arm and the second following along, her emergency bag slung of her shoulder and her light hair tugged back into a hasty pony tail.

The guy grunted as Zerbrowski abruptly stopped pulling him and his partner rammed into his back, upsetting both of them nearly to the ground. Then they finally noticed me where I was weakly laughing and were on their knees ready to poke, prod and possibly dissect me if I let them. The girl had her hands at my throat and was pressing gently, trying to examine it when I flinched back.

“Back off, Barbie,” I said hoarsely, aching as I tried to talk through the bruises.

She looked at me, eyebrows raised. “We need to make sure you’re okay,” she said, as if I wouldn’t know whether I was okay or not.

The guy chose that moment to try and start an IV, and I jerked back, smacking my head on the wall and shooting daggers at both of them with my eyes. “No. No, no, and no. No needles, no touching. Leave me alone.”

“Anita, come on, let them check you out.” Zerbrowski now, in a wheedling tone of voice. Like he knew that I’d fight and was hoping that he could appeal to my nicer side.

“No.”

“Yes.” This time it was Dolph, kneeling at my side and running a finger just under my jaw to tilt my head back and take a good look. “You’ll let them check you over, and even take you to the hospital because you’re going to need an MRI, maybe x-rays. And you’re not going to argue, because right now you’re working for me.”

“Fuck you, Dolph,” I said sweetly, and then let them do what they wanted.

I ended up, as promised, in the emergency room. They took me in with sirens wailing and me strapped to a backboard with a neck brace. I kept trying to tell them that they were overreacting, but nobody really wanted to listen to me. They ignored me as they took blood and peered in my eyes and poked and prodded and examined me within an inch of my life.

And then I had to go for x-rays, two of them. They were concerned after hearing from eyewitnesses that I’d been thrown broadside into a car. Of course, to hear Zerbrowski tell it, they were more worried because they’re seen the car. It apparently had a foot deep dent that matched my body in the passenger side, to go with the pulverized hood.

Then they ran me upstairs for an MRI, making me lay still for almost an hour while they ran the tests, compared the results, and ran them again to verify. No one could believe it, but I’d gotten away with no worse than a cracked rib. And it was already beginning to heal, thanks to the marks.

When there was finally a lull in the procedures they insisted on I got Zerbrowski to find me a phone. I took a few minutes to call and let Richard know I was alive and fine, he promised to pass it on to Asher and anyone else who needed to know. Or be reassured, since I’d managed to catch one of the news reports covering how I’d gone up single handedly against the revenant only to be carted off unmoving in an ambulance.

Too bad they didn’t think to mention that I’d been strapped down so tight I could barely breathe.

Then I dialed my own number, hoping that I wouldn’t wake the girls and would get Edward. It was early, too early for them to be up for school, so there was no chance I’d have frightened them by being on the news. But Edward didn’t answer. I got the machine, and ground my teeth in the disappointment and the effort it took not to cry.

“It’s me,” I said quietly, trying not to let anyone overhear. “I’m okay, I was careful. I promise, I was as careful as I could be. I don’t know how long they’re planning on keeping me, but you don’t have to come.” My voice broke and I did begin to cry. “I’m sorry,” I whispered and hung up.

I handed the phone back to Zerbrowski, tried to thank him, but could only cry. I curled onto my side and just lay there until the doctors came back, clucking their tongues and shaking their heads. That’s when they decided I was suffering from shock and hysteria. That’s when they ran the IV. And that’s when they sedated me, because I couldn’t stop on my own.


	22. Chapter 22

He didn’t come.

When I woke up that afternoon the worst thing about it was the screaming ache in my neck and throat every time I swallowed. A quick trip to the bathroom was enlightening, and I surveyed the blossoming necklace of bruises about my throat. Mostly it was black, but there were hints of sickly green and yellow at the edges where it was healing.

But it was bad, pretty bad. I could still see the individual handprints from the way he’d held me and each time his grip had changed. Thank god it hadn’t been much, or he might’ve gotten lucky and just broken my neck. As it was, I’d be speaking in a hoarse whisper for another day or so.

My side was a mass of bruises that matched it, spreading all the way around to my back and speckled from green and yellow to black and purple. It looked far worse than it really was, mostly just severe bruising. It was pitch black where the rib was cracked, but it was already lightening at the edges with jagged bolts of green. It didn’t even hurt all that much to breathe, for all they hadn’t taped my side up like they normally would.

Maybe I was healed. I twisted to get a better look and a sharp twinge ran through it. So maybe I was just healing.

I sighed and headed back out to the hospital bed and, I found, Dolph. He had pulled a chair up next to the bed and had spread out the contents of a manila folder across it and was looking over one of the papers when I climbed back up. I was surprised to see a smile crack the usually serious expression he wore.

“You’re happy. Who died?” I asked, trying to laugh and only wincing at the sound of my voice. It was harsh and strident to my ears, and it didn’t feel very good speaking, either.

He raised an eyebrow but continued smiling. “How’s your throat?” I shrugged. “This is the case we had for that revenant. The many reasons why it had to die, despite it being taken out by someone who was not a cop. Bert’s having a field day and is threatening to sue the department for trying to kill you. Again.”

I almost laughed but stopped myself in time. “And the department is…?”

“Offering money, more valuable retainers, and perks.” His smile got bigger. “And Bert has demanded that I be considered for a promotion, because apparently I’m the only one you listen to on a regular basis.”

“And they’re going to do it?”

“I got the official notice an hour ago.” He flashed the papers at me and I grabbed them, eyes going wide as I read.

“Well, well, _Captain_ Storr,” I said on a grin. “They’re letting you stay with RPIT, aren’t they?” I asked, stomach suddenly going cold.

“I expect I’ll be there till I die or retire,” he answered. “Don’t worry, Anita, I’m not letting anyone else take the squad.”

“Good. Now, where are my clothes?” I asked, going for innocent and missing by a few dozen years.

“Anita,” he began, trying to placate me. “You shouldn’t be so anxious to leave. You were attacked by a revenant yesterday.”

“And I killed it,” I said, voice like rough steel. “Dolph, I want to go home,” I said, letting my weariness seep through. “I want to see my family.”

He shrugged, gathering the file. “You know they’re going to argue, right?” I nodded. “Well, I had to try. I’ll see you in a couple days. I won’t let them call you in before you have that much to yourself.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Dolph.”

I waited till he left to press the call button. After yesterday, Dolph didn’t need the fireworks I was about to set off. I smiled as I sat back to wait for the nurses and doctors to come running.

It seems that I’m something of a celebrity in the hospitals I’m regularly checked into. St. Louis General being the first and foremost that I patronize. The doctors knew what was coming when I woke up and were the ones to respond. A trauma specialist and a neurologist, of all things, and both ready to convince me that I didn’t really want to leave because I could have been killed, maimed, brain damaged, etc.

I politely pointed out that I wasn’t any of those things, and that despite my obvious emotional state the night before. And if they had let me cry myself out I wouldn’t have needed to be sedated (and didn’t they jump the gun, maybe I should consult a lawyer) or admitted. So didn’t they think they should get a hurry on with getting my discharge papers together?

They did.

I was signed out against medical advice within an hour, and dressed in clean clothes, too. Someone had been thoughtful enough to bring me some jeans and a shirt, as well as some clean underthings and non-bloody shoes. When I was clean and dressed and hair combed back into a curly ball at the back of my head, I gathered my weapons and the bag of bloodstained clothes and headed for the elevators.

The ride down was peaceful, and I whistled, sort of, as I thought about surprising the girls when I got home. It was just going on five. I’d left a little more than twenty-four hours ago, and I’d be walking in with them not expecting me. It made me smile to think how happy they would be to see me.

I wasn’t, however, expecting the flash of lights and cameras being shoved in my face the second I stepped off the elevator. The myriad of questions thrown at me just after that didn’t make feel any better, and I narrowed my eyes against the glare of lights.

“What do you want?” I managed to rasp out before various reporters and journalists were at it.

“Ms. Blake, is it true that you killed the vampire single handed?” “Ms. Blake? Was it your blood, too?” “Ms. Blake, can you comment on the victims and the attacks after you allowed the vampire to escape?” “Ms. Blake, why haven’t you had any visitors?”

I flushed at the last, and snarled at the woman who asked that. “Get out of my way, I’m going home.”

I tried to push past her, using all of my willpower not to let myself rip her pretty little suit to shreds or gouge her fake blue eyes out. The thought of yanking on her chocolate brown hair was pleasing, too, but I didn’t. She wouldn’t let me past, stepping back in front of me and shoving her microphone in my face.

“Ms. Blake, is it true that your husband was seen consulting with a divorce lawyer last week?”

I have no idea what came over me.

No, that’s not true. I know exactly what came over me. A red hot blistering rage. Before I’d even thought of doing it my hand snapped out in a fist and smashed into the bitch’s mouth. I had the distinct pleasure of feeling at least one tooth loosen before my other hand came up to tangle in her hair and jerk her face down towards my knee.

Unfortunately someone pulled her away just in time and my knee missed, only glancing off of her shoulder while she screamed, her hand glued to her mouth and blood seeping from between her fingers. Within moments her eyes were on me and she was straining to hit me back, but she was being held. So was I, but I wasn’t trying to hit her anymore, not once the initial anger had passed.

No, now I was just going to make the rest of her life miserable. Stupid bitch, mucking about in my personal life. Revenge is one of my best features. Even Edward has admitted that.

Then hospital security was hauling me off to their ground floor offices and closing the media out. I’d given them a field day. It got even worse when the police arrived. Regular police, not anyone I knew, and took one look around. They saw me, bruised and freshly released from the hospital. They saw her, bleeding freely and sitting limply in a chair.

Decisions, decisions. They arrested me.

And that is how I found myself sitting in central booking until the wee hours of the morning. Because unless you are a vampire, lycanthrope, or something else of that nature, you languish. Oh, forgot, if you did something bad with magic. But I’d decked the lady with my own fist so I was forgotten about.

It was one before they called my name, and I got up and headed over to the deputy expecting to be fingerprinted and processed. Finally. I’d have to call someone and wake them up to bail me out. God, this was perfect. But instead of that, they ushered me into a little room with a door, and through it.

And into the station proper, where Dolph was waiting for me with a frown.

“Could have sworn I said a couple of days. Not hours. Get those cuffs off her,” he snapped at the uniform behind me.

The cuffs went quickly and I rubbed my wrists, noting that they were bruised and that, on one, just over the bone, it had been scraped until it bled. “I’m not being booked?”

He shook his head. “I pulled my newfound rank and talked to the chief. I explained to him that you were an asset to the department and that doing you a favor would be wise.”

“You explained.” I raised an eyebrow.

He smiled a little. “I also explained that the reporter harassed you. Because that’s what happened, isn’t it, Anita?”

I nodded obediently. Then I flushed. “The cameras. Everyone saw it, Dolph.”

“About _everyone_, Anita. They were trespassing on hospital grounds, and want to avoid prosecution. Including her station. Since you can press charges on her for stalking and harassment.”

“You’re good,” I said with a smile.

“Yes, I am. Now let’s get you home.”

We rode in a companionable silence to my house. It was dark, I’d expected that, and I flicked on the porch light once I was safely inside and behind a locked door. It would let Dolph know that everything was fine. I watched for a moment as his taillights disappeared before turning it off and heading to my room, and my bed. My big, comfy bed that was calling for me to come sleep in it.

I walked straight through to the bathroom, closing the door most of the way before turning the light on. I didn’t want to wake anyone up, and the surest way was a light in the room that was supposed to be empty. I washed my face and brushed my teeth before undressing and pulling on the nightshirt that was hung behind the door.

I stooped and pulled a little bottle from my jeans pocket before dumping all of the clothes into the hamper. They were Tylenol with codeine, for my throat and ribs. I took one with a little water, then pulled my hair loose before turning the light off and padding quietly to my bed.

I slid in, tucking the sheet around me and sidling over to the middle of the bed. And the warm body curled there. I gave a muffled shriek and my hand shot out to the lamp on the nightstand, jerking the pull chain hard enough to make the lamp rock. In the middle of my bed, wrapped around my pillow, sound asleep no less, was Edward.

Still asleep. I hadn’t roused him at all.

What was he doing in my bed? With my pillow? And was he naked? I lifted the sheet a little and peeked under, prepared for lots of skin. Well, I thought I was. But the smooth tan skin was interrupted by blue cotton boxers, and the relief I felt was very telling to my preparedness.

In the end I sighed and grabbed one of the other pillows on the bed before turning the light off and laying back down as far from Edward as I could get without falling off the bed. He still hadn’t moved to do anything but breathe, and I listened to it for a long time before going to sleep.


	23. Chapter 23

I woke to a warm body wrapped around me and it took me a moment to realize I was wrapped back around it. Edward’s face was buried at my throat and his arms were around me and holding me very close, one leg pushed between mine and the foot hooked around my leg at the ankle. My arms had somehow wound around his shoulders and neck and I was fairly sure that however close he was holding me, I was holding him just as close.

I thought that he was asleep, that I’d just woke of my own accord, or some twisted desire by my body to be punished by waking up at—I glanced past his shoulder to the clock on the table at his side of the bed—half past six in the morning. But he shifted after a moment and I felt his eye lashes brushing across my throat followed by a faint rumble from him as he yawned.

“You’re home,” he muttered, rolling back a bit and peering at me in the mostly dark room.

“I got in late. You didn’t wake up,” I replied, trying to figure out why I felt so defensive. “You fell asleep in my bed,” I pointed out as I tried not to squirm.

“I know,” he said. “Having two kids is tiring.”

I heard the exasperation in that, and bit back a laugh. “Yeah. Going to get more exhausting. I need to go wake them up for school soon.” My body felt heavy with sleep, or lack of.

“Friday,” he said as he slid back towards me and settled himself against me again. “Go back to sleep, I’ll get them ready.”

“You sure?” I asked as I my eyes began to drift back closed. Either my body knew what it needed more than I did, or that Tylenol was still going strong in my system. The heavy feeling was only getting stronger and I tried to force it to the side as I bolted upright. “Can’t, we have to talk.”

“Sh, Anita. Just go to sleep. We can talk later,” he murmured as he eased me back down and smoothed my hair back from my face.

“No, we can’t,” I sighed as my eyes closed. “You’re leaving.” The ache that shot through me brought tears to my eyes. Memories of the reporter came back and how she knew, and now everyone had to know that he’d seen a lawyer and was divorcing me. “You’re leaving,” I said again.

“I’m not leaving, Anita. We can talk when you wake up.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek. “I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.”

“Okay,” I murmured as sleep began to take me again. “If you promise.”

I think I remember him laughing. A pleasant, light thing that made me want to smile. But I couldn’t, and in the next heartbeat I was asleep again, and dreaming the dreams that no one ever remembers.

I woke to full sunshine and an empty bed. It was rumpled, the sheets pushed down to the foot, and I was sprawled across it like nobody’s business. But I felt better, refreshed. I sat up taking a deep breath and noting that my side no longer hurt. The twisting movement that I’d attempted at the hospital the day before didn’t hurt at all, and I was able to see the faded green and yellow of the bruise.

My hands shot to my throat and I swallowed experimentally. It hurt, but not so bad as before, and the mirror above my dresser showed that the bruising there was fading, too. I cleared my throat and winced. It was still hurt, just not as bad as before.

I yawned as I headed for the bathroom, humming faintly as I brushed my teeth and then hair, tugging at it with a comb and sighing at the riot of curls that I was doomed not to control that morning. I didn’t feel like messing with any styling, and yanking it back into a ponytail made my scalp ache at the thought, so I left it down.

I flushed when I saw how much leg was showing in my nightshirt; it was very short and the thought that I’d slept with Edward wearing this scrap was… Well, disappointing that nothing had happened. I sighed as I dug out a pair of old sweats and a tank top, and then headed out in bare feet.

The smell of bacon was prominent and I could hear Edward singing along with the radio as he stood in front of the stove. The skin of his back was a warm golden brown and smooth, rippling across the unblemished skin that the faerie had given back to him. I watched him for a minute, my arms circling my waist and feeling very small and alone until he shifted his weight and stopped singing.

“Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to come eat?” he asked, not glancing back.

I went to the table and sat down, propping my elbows on knees and leaning forward, watching him. “You knew I was there.”

“I always know when you’re there,” he said as he slid some eggs from the pan onto a plate. He put the pan in the sink, flipped the stove off and grabbed the plate of eggs, and a second of bacon before heading to the table.

There was already a pint of orange juice and a pot of coffee, as well as plates and mugs for us. I quirked an eyebrow at him as he sat the food down with a flourish. “Sorry, no toast. Your bread was moldy and I forgot it when we went to the store.”

“Oh. Well, you seemed to do well enough.” In fact, it made me feel very superfluous. Not needed. The girls took to him great. I wasn’t really needed for anything other than an emotional punching bag.

I sighed and grabbed a couple slices of bacon, munching on one as I scooped some of the scrambled eggs on to my plate. They were pretty good, salty enough to cut the tang of the orange juice, but not so salty as to make them distasteful. They tasted like I made them, and I bit down on the sharp comment I nearly made. He wasn’t trying to take my place; I had to keep telling myself that.

He was just trying to make his own.

We were nearly finished before one of us finally said something. Worked up enough courage. Or maybe he was just biding his time, because my courage was nowhere near enough.

“A broken tooth, and three loosened. Did you have to hit her that hard, Anita?” he asked, his eyes dancing.

I mumbled something before cramming another slice of bacon in my mouth.

“Really? I couldn’t tell that she’d pissed you off.” His tone was droll, and I glared at him. He grabbed my plate and stacked it on the rest before taking them to the sink and rinsing them.

“I didn’t know I broke one.”

“You shouldn’t have hit her.”

I didn’t say anything.

He cursed and I looked up. He was leaning against the counter watching me and I flushed. “Come on,” he said, coming over and taking my hand, pulling me to my feet. “Let’s go sit in the living room.”

“I don’t really want to, Edward,” I protested as I followed him. “I already know what’s going to happen, what you’re going to say.”

“Really?” he asked as he sat and pulled me down to sit next to him. “Please, do tell.”

I looked away, my face hot and my voice tight. “You’re going to tell me that the papers have been filed and you found a place and you’ll leave in however many days. Then you’ll tell me that your lawyer will be in touch to discuss custody, you’ll smile, and leave.”

There was a long silence, then, “I’m not leaving, Anita. I promised.”

My eyes flew to his. “You got the papers. I signed them. It’s done,” I grated out.

He leaned forward, eyes shifting to my throat. His fingers scraped across the bruised flesh lightly. “Dolph told me what happened. You could have died.” His voice was soft, so very soft, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. I didn’t say anything, only sat there stiffly as his fingers traced the marks the revenant had left on my skin.

“Anita,” he murmured. “I didn’t sign the papers.”

“What?”

It just popped out, I didn’t even think about it as I said it. All that hell, going to a lawyer, bringing them home. I signed the papers. I already signed, wasn’t that it? Didn’t that mean he was finished with me? My mind flashed to the last few days. The way he’d touched me, taken care of me. _Be careful? Promise me you’ll be careful?_

“I didn’t sign the papers, Anita,” he whispered.

“You didn’t? Why?” I knew this. This was easy, I knew the answer. But I was too afraid to say it, think it.

“You love me, right?” he asked, his hands sliding up to my face to cup my cheeks. “Everything you did, you did because you love me. You got angry at me, you wanted to hurt me. Then you wanted to help me when I came back, fix me. Make me better.”

“So?” I asked, tears welling in my eyes. I blinked feeling them spill down my cheeks, and suddenly his fingers were there wiping them away.

“Don’t cry, Anita. Please don’t cry. I love you. I don’t want to make you cry again,” he whispered, his own eyes glistening brightly blue as his leaned forward, lips seeking mine.

He kissed me softly, desperately, lips trembling on mine and I pulled back shaking my head. “Please, don’t,” I whispered. It was too much, more than I could handle.

He let go of me suddenly, pulling a folded wad of papers from his back pocket and unfolding them, showing them to me. They were the divorce papers, and his fingers were pointing, shaking as he spoke. “Look, Anita. I didn’t sign them. I don’t want them.” Without any more of a warning he ripped them apart, tearing them into shreds before dropping them on the coffee table.

“Please, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this happen. Can you forgive me?” he asked, his hands on mine and still shaking.

I gave him a watery smile. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I am sorry.”

“It’s in the past,” he said with a gentle kiss. “You still love me?”

I nodded. “I still love you.”

He smiled at me and put a hand to my cheek as he kissed me again. “Let’s start over, Anita. Do it right, this time. Do it for the right reasons.”

“What do you mean? We can’t turn back time, Edward.”

“No,” he said as he slid off the couch and to his knees. “I don’t have another ring for you, Anita. I’ll get you another one if you want, with the biggest diamond in the world. Just say you’ll marry me. Again,” he added with a crooked smile.

“The last week has been hell. Absolute hell. Nothing went right and we really fucked it up. So marry me again, on our terms, and let’s do it right.”

I was floored. Almost literally. I didn’t know what to say, except yes, but even that didn’t seem adequate enough. I leaned forward and kissed him, letting my lips slide over his and trying not to cry all over him. My arms went around his neck and I pulled him close until he was half on the couch with me just for the kiss.

“Is that a yes?” he asked when I finally let him go.

I nodded, smiling and crying at the same time. “That’s a yes. A big yes.”

He kissed me again.


	24. Chapter 24

He did get me a new ring. A three stoned diamond ring that totaled at just over four carats and didn’t grace my hand until the ceremony. We advertised it as a renewal of vows and credited it to his miraculous return from the dead. Or rather, kidnapping. That was how we smoothed that one over, and reestablished him as a living, contributing member of society during the ten months between his proposal and the actual wedding.

This time the ceremony was held with a full attendance, just after sunset and outside next to the river. We had a massive pavilion set up, but took our actual vows under the stars, letting them watch on. I wore a simple cream dress that originally had hugged my body, but had been altered to be less form fitting and more tasteful. Edward wore a simple black suit that really was so simple as elegant.

Becca and Anna wore frilly lavender things that they picked out. Amazingly tasteful, considering the ages of the ladies in question.

The party was one of the more popular events billed that summer, and it really bit the bitch’s ire that she had been blacklisted from knowing anything. Only by extension, since when it was announced to the other media, we kept it from her station purposely. When they asked we told them it was because they couldn’t keep their journalists in line.

She got fired.

We kept any mention of obeying out of our vows, instead inserting a mutual assistance pact. It had gotten a couple laughs from the people who truly understood it. Maybe one of them was human. That thought did make me laugh.

The party was still going after midnight when Edward and I piled into the rented limo and headed for the airport. This time our honeymoon was going to be out of town and at a beach. I’d picked the Florida Keys, hoping that it would be a good change from the last time we’d done it.

I wasn’t disappointed. It was much better than before, and I found myself watching the sunrise the second morning, waiting for Edward to wake up and join me on the bungalow’s veranda. It was a lovely picture, the sun rising crimson over a dark expanse of water. The sugar white sand rushing out meet it. Perfect. Maybe we should move.

I smiled when I felt his hand on my shoulder. He tugged me up and wrapped his hands around me from behind, threading his fingers through mine and resting them just under my breasts. I smiled and leaned my head back against his shoulder.

“Edward?” I said softly, not wanting to spoil the moment, but thinking that it couldn’t be more perfect.

“Hmm,” was the response I got from him, and I smiled. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” His tone was casual, he wasn’t worried. He felt safe with me. As he should.

“You remember how the faerie bitch fixed us?”

“Yeah,” he said, beginning to perk up and look at me out of the corner of his eye. “Why?”

I smiled for a moment before lowering his hands to my stomach and the soft curve that was developing. “I lied about why we altered my dress.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also have some recovered/saved Anita Blake fics (including plenty of A/E, but not only that) stuck on a google drive, [please click here](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KQMp7b06-cmAndB_tUv2YS4cPQlsNaMk?usp=sharing) to go check it out and read some more excellent fic.


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